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GENERAL HISTORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN RELlGIOiN AjSD CHURCH: 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN OF 
 
 DR. AUGUSTUS NEANDER. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE LAST EDITION. 
 
 BY JOSEPH TORREY, 
 
 PROFEBSOR OF MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVESITT OF TIRMONT. 
 
 " I am come to send fire on the earth."— Worrfs of our Lord. 
 
 «« And the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is." " But other foundation can no man 
 
 lay than that is laid, which is Chrifit Jesus."— Si. Faul. 
 
 »/w\/v\/>^ 
 
 VOLUME FIFTH: 
 
 COMPRISING THE SIXTH VOLUME OF THE ORIGINAL'. 
 (eleventh part of the whole work.) 
 
 %/\/xyww 
 
 PUBLISHED FEQM THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS, 
 
 BYK. F. TH. SCJINEIDER. 
 
 Sccontr 0merfcan SBTiftfon. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 PUBLISHED BY CROCKER & BREWSTER, 
 
 1859. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by 
 
 CROCKER & BREWSTER, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 
 AN DOVER: JOHN D. FLAGO, 
 
 • TKREOTrPEB AKD PRIKTER. 
 
 18916G 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 On me, after the death of my much loved teacher and pater- 
 nal friend, was devolved the task of preparing for the press the 
 last greater work of the lamented Neander, the sLxth volume of 
 his church history. Having discharged this no less honorable 
 than arduous duty, I now think it due to the respected reader 
 that 1 should give some brief account of the method according 
 to which I have proceeded. 
 
 In the abstract, two possible ways indeed presented them- 
 selves in which this volume might be prepared for the public 
 eye : either to follow out the subject, in accordance with the 
 plan and preparatory labors of Neander down to the point of 
 time he originally proposed to himself — the commencement of 
 the Reformation — or to publish it in the fragmentary shape in 
 which it was left. Pious regard to the style of a work peculiarly 
 original in its kind, and the design of Neander, expressed shortly 
 before his death, of publishing a part of the materials here pre- 
 sented as the first division of the sixth volume, equally forbade 
 the former of these methods. And yet in adopting the latter plan, 
 liberty was still left to the editor of executing his task in very' 
 different ways. He might, perhaps, consider himself justified, 
 in the case of fragments of this sort, in giving them a finer pol- 
 ish by applying the last finishing hand. But the undersigned 
 has felt bound to abstain even from this. It has been his en- 
 deavor to present the work of Neander with the least possible 
 curtailment, and with the least possible additions of his own ; 
 and it has been his wish rather to be found too faithfully exact, 
 or if you please slavish, than arbitrary in the labors he has be- 
 stowed. Nevertheless, in hundreds of places he has altered the 
 
iv editor's preface. 
 
 text, and in a still greater number of instances corrected the 
 notes. But in so doing he has only taken the same liberty which 
 the lamented author, while living, had already allowed him to 
 use in the publication of his more recent works, the new edi- 
 tions of St. Bernard, of Chrysostom, and of Tertullian ; with 
 this difference, indeed, that with regard to these latter, he could 
 in all difficult cases refer to the author himself, while in the pres- 
 ent case, he had to decide according to his own best judgment. 
 Unhappily the editor, who by long exercise had become tolera- 
 bly familiar with Neander's method of composing, did not have 
 it in his power to lend the beloved man of God a helping hand, 
 except in a small portion of this work; and various circum- 
 stances, such as a growing infirmity of sight, and occasional 
 sudden interruptions closely connected with this calamity, the il- 
 legibility of his excerpts made in earlier years, want of practice 
 in his last assistants, and various other causes, conspired togeth- 
 er to render his labors more difficult, nay, if possible, distaste- 
 ful to the restlessly active investigator. Once and again he had 
 even entertained the thought of bringing his work to a close in 
 the form of a brief compendium; but strong attachment to the 
 labor of his life, ever breaking forth afresh, and the hope that he 
 might perhaps yet recover the use of his eye-sight, constantly 
 brought him back again to the extremely painful and yet dearly 
 beloved continuation of the task he had begun. How natural, 
 that the manuscripts he left behind him should also, in various 
 ways, bear upon them the marks of their origin. The editor, 
 therefore, has not hesitated to correct all manifest errors of fact, 
 so far as they came to his knowledge, whether arising from some 
 misunderstanding of the assistants, or, as the case often was, 
 from the illegibility of Neander's excerpts, or from any other 
 cause. Or ought he to have hesitated to do this when, for ex- 
 ample, the Mss. p. 371, spoke of a Marshal of the empire by the 
 name of Von Pappenheim, or when, p. 340, the Easter festival 
 was said to fall on the 31st of May, or when the text read " That 
 one Cardinal John would bring disgrace upon the pope and car- 
 dinals;" or when, as was not seldom the case in the section 
 concerning Matthias of Janow, the translation conveyed an al- 
 most directly contrary meaning to the correct reading of the orig- 
 inal ? On the other hand, in all cases where the matter was at 
 all doubtful to me, I have allowed the text to be printed without 
 alteration, or at most (compare, e. g., p. 317, and 34-1,) simply 
 intimated my doubts in the shape of notes. The style more- 
 
editor's preface. V 
 
 over has been, in here and there an instance, slightly altered by 
 me, and repetitions of longer or shorter extent, such as were 
 almost unavoidable in a work which sprang purely out of the 
 recollection of Neander, expunged. Among the papers, further- 
 more, were found a series of sheets which Neander had marked, 
 partly with a conjectural indication of their being designed, on 
 a final revision, for insertion in their appropriate places. These 
 I have carefully inserted wherever it could be done, either at 
 once, or only with some slight alteration of form, and have 
 never laid them aside except in those cases where their insertion 
 would have required an entire recasting of the text. But addi- 
 tions and the completion of defective parts, in the strict and 
 proper sense, T have never allowed myself to make, except on 
 literary points, and that in perfect accordance with Neander's 
 wishes. Unhappily the more recent works on church history are 
 often, in this respect, in the highest degree unreliable, as one au- 
 thor is found to copy the false citations of another. Lewis's 
 History of the Life and Sufferings of John Wicklif, for example, 
 is a work which seems actually to have been in the hands of very 
 few of our church historians. 
 
 In proceeding to make a few brief remarks on single portions 
 of the present volume, let me begin by observing that the first 
 portion which relates to the history of the papacy and of the 
 church constitution down to the time of the council of Basle, as 
 it was the earliest in the time of its composition, is manifestly 
 also the most complete as to form. As regards the continuation 
 of this section, Neander left behind only a series of preparatory 
 papers, but no proper sketch of the whole, nor even elaboration 
 of single passages. This latter labor had been bestowed indeed 
 upon passages belonging to the second section treating of the 
 Reformation of England; yet these single passages, attached 
 for the most part to the unfinished exposition of Wicklif s doc- 
 trines, were so unconnected, that the editor felt himself com- 
 pelled, in following out his principle, to leave them aside. And 
 he considered himself the more justified in so doing, because 
 they contained little else than translations of single passages 
 from the work of Vaughan. The third principal section, relating 
 to the history of the Bohemian reformers, belongs among those 
 parts which Neander constantly treated with especial predilec- 
 tion. It will assuredly afford no small satisfaction to the admi- 
 rers of the great departed, to find that it was at least permitted 
 him to bring to its close the history of John Huss ; and if this, 
 
vi ' editor's preface. 
 
 too, is here presented to us, as the well informed reader will be 
 at no loss to discern that it is, only in its first rough sketch, yet 
 this very circumstance enables us to see nnore profoundly into 
 the intellectual power and vigor of the departed historian, which 
 was preserved unimpaired to the end. We can only wish that 
 the new light thrown by Neander on the great Bohemian re- 
 formers might serve as a stimulus to some competent hand 
 soon to furnish us with an edition of the hitherto unpublished 
 writings of Militz, of Conrad of Waldhausen, and particularly 
 of the pioneer work of Matthias of Janow! Also a new edi- 
 tion of the works of John IIuss, or at least the preparation of a 
 chronologically arranged edition of his letters, belongs among 
 the piis desideriis in the department of church history. Many 
 of the preliminary labors to such a performance are to be found 
 in the excellent work of Palacky. Neander has repeatedly al- 
 luded to the incorrectness and inexactitude of the Nurenberg 
 edition of 1558, and the passages adduced by him might easily 
 be multiplied to tenfold the number. Such a monument is due 
 from us Protestants to the memory of John Huss, of whom our 
 Luther, in his lectures on Isaiah, so strikingly remarks : " Existi- 
 mo Johannem Huss suo sanguine peperisse Evangelion, quod 
 nunc habemus." A man of learning so enthusiastic in his ad- 
 miration of Huss as M. Ferdinand B. Mikowic, who has already 
 favored us with a new corrected translation of the letters that 
 had been already published by Luther, would be just the person 
 to engage in such an undertaking. The Bohemian work con- 
 taining the letter of Huss should be published in Bohemian, 
 with a German or Latin translation on the opposite columns. 
 Such an enterprise would certainly be crowned with success. 
 Finally, on the section relating to the German Friends of God, 
 Neander was still occupied during the last days of his life ; in 
 truth, the habitual occupation of his mind with the work of 
 bis life intermingled among the pleasing fancies that floated be- 
 fore the mind of this departing friend of God. 
 
 Gladly would I, in compliance with the urgent wishes of Ne- 
 ander's admirers, have hurried to a speedier conclusion the pub- 
 lication of the present volume ; but this could not be done in 
 connection with my professional duties. Besides, there were 
 other hindrances. The library of Neander, unhappily, did not 
 stand at my command. Several works and editions which Ne- 
 ander had cited, such as Lewis's History of Wicklif, and the first 
 edition of Vaughan's work, were not to be found, even in the 
 
editor's preface. vii 
 
 Eoyal Library in this place, and they could not otherwise be 
 obtained than by ordering them from England. I may doubt- 
 less rely, therefore, on the kind indulgence of my readers. But 
 I confidently hope, too, and this would be my best reward, that 
 faithfulness to my never to be forgotten master, and to his work, 
 will not be found wanting. 
 
 K. F. TH. SCHNEIDER. 
 Berlin, Oct. 31st, 1851. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 VOLUME FIFTH. 
 
 SIXTH PERIOD OF THE HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 
 FROM BONIFACE VIII. TO THE BEGINNING OF THE REFORMATION. 
 
 SECTION FIRST. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE PAPACY AND OF THE CHURCH CONSITUTION DOWN TO 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE COUNCIL OF BASLE. P. 1 — 134. 
 
 Character of this penoJ as a period of transition, particularly evinced in the 
 history of the papacy 1 
 
 Boniface VIIL His plots against his predecessor Coelestin. Abuse of 
 the papal plenitude of power. Bestowment of indulgences on occasion 
 of the Jubilee, A. D. 1300 3 
 
 Boniface VIIL and Philip the Fair. The bull Clerices laicos of the 
 year 1296. The counter declaration of the king, evincing a more free- 
 minded spirit 6 
 
 More violent outbreak of the quarrel. Saiset de Pamiers, papal legate. 
 His dismission and arrest. Bonface's dictatorial letter. Laconic reply 
 of the king. Free opinion set forth by the king's advocate, Peter de 
 Boses. The longer letter of the pope, dated 5th of December, 1301. 
 The bull Unam sanctam. The protests of the French barons and bish- 
 ops. Unsatisfactory justification of the pope by the cardinals. Journeys 
 to Rome forbidden. Bull of excommunication on the 13th of April, 1303. 
 Assembling of the French estates. Their charges against Boniface and 
 appeal to a general council. Bull of the 15th of August, 1303. Cap- 
 ture of the pope at Anagni by William of Nogaret. His firmness in mis- 
 fortune ; his liberation ; his death 13 
 
 Controversial tract by jEgidius of Rome. Contrast drawn between the 
 actual papacy and its idea. The secular power subject to the spiritual 
 only in purely spiritual matters. The pope head of the church only in 
 a certain sense. Against the sophistical proposition that man's original 
 state is restored in the unity of the papacy. Against the arbitrary absol- 
 ving of subjects from their oath of allegiance. The papal plenitudo po- 
 testatis a limited one. More correct view of the historical facts relating 
 to these matters 15 
 
 Treatise by John of Paris on royal and papal authority. Secular lordship 
 
S TABLE OF CONTEXTS. 
 
 not in contradiction -with the vocation of the pope, nor yet derived from 
 it The priest in spintual things greater than the prince, in secular 
 things the converse. Against arbitrary- administration of church proper- 
 ty by the pope. The secular power of princes not derived from the 
 })o\)Q. Dcience of the independent authority of bishops and priests. 
 Ecclesiastical jurisdiction extends solely to spiritual matters. Sovereign 
 ])riiK:cs to be corrected only in an indirect manner. Rights of the em- 
 peror with regard to incorrigible ])opes. Against the gift of Constan- 
 tine. On the possible deposition or abdication of the pope 19 
 
 Benedict XI. flakes advances to meet Trance. His speedy death 19 
 
 Quarrel between the Italian and the French party in the choice of a new 
 pope. Crafty advice of the French cardinal Du Prat. Bertrand 
 d'Agoust as Clement the V. Transfer of the papal residence to Avig- 
 non m 1309 20 
 
 The conse(piences of this transfer. The popes become tools in the hands 
 of the French kings. Increased corrui)tion of the papal court. In- 
 creased usnrj)ations of the hierarchy. Reaction called forth thereby. 
 The more liberal theological tendency of the Paris university. Opposi- 
 tion between the French and the Italian cardinals 22 
 
 Dependence of Clement V. upon Philip. Process against Boniface before 
 the papal consistory. His vindication at the council of Vienne and the 
 abandonment of his bulls. Abolishment of the order of the Knights 
 Templar - 23 
 
 John XXII. Ban and interdict against Louis the Bavarian. Appeal of the 
 
 latter to a general council. Violent contests in Germany. Expedi- ^ 
 
 tion of Louis to Italy, A. D. 1327. The more rigid and the more lax 
 Franciscans. Michael of Chesena and "William Occam 25 
 
 Marsilius of Padua. His Defensor Pacis, a foretoken of the protestant 
 sj)ii-it. Christ alone the rock and the head of the church. The sacred 
 Scriptures the highest source of knowledge of the faith. More sharply 
 drawn distinction of the ideas of church and state. Supreme authority 
 of general councils Purely spiritual authority of the church. The 
 clergy in the cat,e of actions cirilly punishable subjected to the laws of 
 the st^ite. God alone can forgive sin. The absolving of subjects from 
 their oath of allegiance heretical ; the crusade proclaimed against the 
 emperor abominable ; indulgences promised to such as engaged in it 
 fraudulent. Recognizes the want of foundation to the hierarchical sys- 
 tem. Originally one priestly olHce. Peter had no prei'minence of rank, 
 and perhaps was never in Rome. The primacy of the pope grew up 
 gradually out of circumstances. Necessity of calling in the asristance of 
 laymen at general councils. Eye-witness of the corruption proceeding 
 from the Roman chancery. His book an important sign of the time. . . 35 
 
 Louis in Rome. Accusation and deposition of John XXII. and election of 
 Nicholas V. Triumph of .John. Fruitless attempts at reconciliation on 
 the part of the emperor. Theological dispute concerning the intuition 
 ot (iod humiliating to the pope. His shameful dependance on the 
 kings of France 38 
 
 AVIUiam Occam : against the papal plenitudo potestatis in temporalibus. To 
 set the priestly authority above that of kings a return to the Old Testa- 
 ment. John XXII. a heretic. His exposition of the words of Augus- 
 tine : Ego vero ecclesi» caet. Arguments to prove that all doctrines 
 nui>t have their foundation in the sacred scriptures 40 
 
 Benedict XII, a man with the severity of a reformer. Opposite reports 
 (Bibainus papaliter) 41 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. xi 
 
 Clement VT. Reduction of the Jubilee to fifty years by the constitution 
 Unigenitus of the year 1319. Renewed, but still fruitless negotiations of 
 the emperor Louis. Disorders in church and state (Friends of God) 
 John of Winterthur traces all corruption to the gift of Constantine as 
 the cause. His complaints 43 
 
 Emperor Charles IV. Maintenance of the ban pronounced on Louis and 
 his adherents, and reactions thereby called forth against the Roman 
 yoke. Starting up again of the story about the return of Frederic II. 
 Quiet reign of Innocent VI. Petrarch's invitation to Urban V. to return 
 back to Rome. Attempted return to Rome in 1367. Back to Avignon 
 in 1370. Return to Rome of Gregory XL with a part of the cardinals 
 in 1376 , 44 
 
 Gregory XL His bull suspending the form hitherto observed in the elec- 
 tion of pope ... 44 
 
 Origin of the forty years* schism in the church : (difficulty of arriving at a 
 knowledge of the real course of events.) Movements of the Romans. 
 The two parties among the French cardinals. Election of Urban VL' 
 Circular-letter of the cardinals. Secret letter to France. Impolitic 
 conduct of Urban. Protest of the cardinals at Anagni. Election of 
 Clement VII. at Ferredi 47 
 
 Import of the schism in the church : evidence of the corruption of the car- 
 dinals and of the church. Increase of simony and of the matter of in- 
 dulgences. BeHef In the necessity of one visible head of the church un- 
 dermined. Longing after a regeneration of the church. More liberal 
 and at the same time conservative tendency in France. More radical 
 reformatory tendencies in England and Bohemia 48 
 
 Clement at Avignon. King Charles I. declares In his favor. Urbanists, 
 Clementlsts, and Neutrals. Henry of Hessia, head of the latter at Paris. 
 His prediction. Efforts of the University of Paris to effect a removal 
 of the schism by means of a general council . . 49 
 
 Henry of Langenstein's Consilium pads of the year 1381 : the schism con- 
 sidered as an admonition of God. Refutation of doubts against the pro- 
 priety of convoking a general council. Which could be convoked, too, 
 by the collective body of the cardinals. The papacy only caput secun- 
 darium of the church. Corruption since the gift of Constantine. Single 
 propositions of reform 50 
 
 Passionate character of Urban VI. His quarrel with the king of Naples. 
 Arrest of suspected cardinals 51 
 
 Boniface IX ; his cupidity. New reduction of the Jubilee (already re- 
 duced by Urban). His itinerant sellers of Indulgences. The Annates. 
 The Bonlfacian Plantation 52 
 
 Great efforts made by the University of Paris. Clement's skilful negotiator 
 Peter de Luna 53 
 
 Formal opinion drawn up by the Paris University, A. D. 1394, composed 
 by Nicholas of Clemaugis: Via cessionis, compromissi, concilii generalia. 
 On the form, the right, and the necessity of the convocation of a general 
 council. Emphatic call upon the king to bring about the restoration of 
 peace to the church. Complaints about ecclesiastical abuses. Defence 
 of the University against the reproach of arrogance 55 
 
 Answer of the king. Bold letter of the University to the pope 56 
 
 Displeasure of the pope with the University. Second letter by the latter. 
 Death of Clement VII. Attempt to prevent the election of a new 
 pope. Hurried election of Benedict XIU. Ignores the obligation he 
 he had agreed to, previous to his election 56 
 
Xll TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Clemangis' work de niina ecclesiac ; The schism a consequence of the cor- 
 ruption in the church, and a means to brin^ her to the consciousness of 
 the same. The corruption in the several orders of the church. A cure 
 possible only by the hand of God GO 
 
 Clemangis' work de studio theologico. Neglect of the office of preaching 
 the chief cause of the corruption of the church. Theology an affair of 
 the heart, not of the understanding, and the sacred scriptures the ulti- 
 mate appeal in matters of religion 62 
 
 Bold letter of the Paris University addressed to the newly elected pope 
 Benedict XIIT, and evasive reply of the latter 63 
 
 Tlie three principal church parties. The advocates of the medieral ecclesias- 
 tical law (Toulouse). The reckless advocates of the new ecclesiastical 
 law. The moderate advocates of the new system (as'Gerson, D'Ailly). 64 
 
 The particular position of Nicholas of Clemangis. opposition to the pas- 
 sionate advocates of the new ecclesiastical freedom. Opposes the 
 subtraction of obedience to Benedict. Personal inclination to the latter. 
 Hh letter to Benedict of the year 1394 (arbitrary alteration of It). Be- 
 comes the pope's secretary. Ilis description of the court of Avignon. 
 Benedict's regard of him. Description of the corruption of the church 
 (in his letters). Even the fules Informls was wanting. Egotism nour- 
 ished the schism. The renunciation of Benedict only did injury. Ne- 
 gotiations ought to be conducted in a mild spirit 70 
 
 Partial return of the French church to obedience to Benedict In the year 
 1404 70 
 
 Innocent VII. dies 1406. Election of the octogenary Gregory XII. His 
 zeal at the beginning for the restoration of peace to the church. En- 
 trance upon negotiations with Benedict. Change of disposition produced 
 in Gregory by his nephews. Incursion of Ladlslaus of Naples into 
 Rome. Benedict's seeming readiness. Gregory's subterfuges to avoid 
 the common abdication at Savona. Gregory in Lucca. The bold 
 sermon of a Carmelite. Benedict In Porto Yenere. Deceptions practised 
 on both sides. Gregory's letters missive for a general council (Acpiilela). 
 Exasperation of his cardinals and their flight to Pisa. Haughtiness of 
 Benedict. Complete subtraction of obedience on the part of the French 
 church. Benedict's flight to Arragon. Letters missive for a general 
 council to meet at Pisa in the year 1409 issued by the cardinals of both 
 parties 77 
 
 Gerson's principles of reform. Restoration of the church theocracy to it.t 
 foundation as it was before the middle ages. (The essential unity of the 
 church reposing solely upon union with Christ. At the same time how- 
 ever the hierachy with the pope at the head a thing necessary for all 
 times. Limitation of the pope's authority by a general council, the con- 
 vocation of which was not necessarily dependant on the pope alone). 
 Without no possibility of removing the schism, this therefore a miin 
 business of the council (requires more careful church-visitations, and a limit 
 to excommunications). Ills treatise de unltate ecclesiae addressed to 
 the council of Pisa. Defence of the authority of the council against the 
 objections drawn from the letter of the positive law 'i<'i 
 
 The council of Pisa. Proceeds consistently according to these principles. 
 Introductory discourse by cardinal Peter Philargl. Deposition of both 
 the popes in the 15th session. Fruitless protests of the emperor Rupert 
 and of the envoys of Benedict. Engagements entered into by the car- 
 dinals previous to the election of a pope. Choice of Alexander V. Ger- 
 son's discourse preached before him. Confirmation of the resolutions of 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 the council by the pope. The reform put off to a new general council 
 
 after three years gg 
 
 Clemanijis on the falhire of the council of Pisa 89 
 
 Cardinal Balthazar Cossa. His course of life. As legate at Bologna. His 
 influence at the council of Pisa. Ills management of Alexander V. 
 Mounts tlie papal chair after his death, under the title of John XXIII. 
 His crafty jwlicy. Elevation of D'Ailly to the post of Cardinal. The 
 
 owl council at Rome in the year 1412 91 
 
 Gerson's sermo coram rege soon after Alexander's election, (his hopes of a 
 
 union with the Greeks) 93 
 
 D'Ailly's tract de dinicultate reformatlonis in concilio universali 94 
 
 Gerson's work concerning the right union and reformation of the church by 
 a general council. Everything else should yield to the best good of the 
 church. On the possibility of deposing a pope. Approbation of immoral 
 means. Invitation to the subtraction of obedience from popes, since it is 
 not on the pope men believe. The emperor must convoke the council. 
 The pitiable results of the council of Pisa ought not to dishearten. The 
 pope not authorized to alter the decrees of a council. The Bonifacian 
 Plantation should be utterly eradicated. Description of the corruption 
 of the Roman chancery. The end of the council was in the first place 
 union under one head, in the next place union in the customs and laws 
 of the primitive church. Even John XXIII. must, if required, abdicate. 
 It would be best to elect no one of the three popes and no cardinal to 
 
 the papacy iqq 
 
 Quarrel between Ladislaus of Naples and John. Conference of the latter 
 with the emperor Sigismund. Agreement of the pope to call a general 
 council. Place of its assembling. The pope repents of the agreement 
 he had entered into. Letters missive for the council of Constance to be 
 assembled for the restoration of church unity and for reform in head and 
 members in November of the year 1414, issued by the pope and the 
 emperor 5^02 
 
 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. 
 
 Preparation for the transactions of the council by D'Ailly's monita de ne- 
 cessitate reformatlonis ecclesiae in capite et in membris 102 
 
 John not without anxiety at Constance. Compact entered Into with Duke 
 Frederic of Austria. Arrives on the 28th of October 103 
 
 Resolutions of the council with regard to the voting by nations. Concern- 
 ing the right to vote of university teachers, of the inferior clergy and of 
 princes and their envoys. On the question whether the council was to be 
 considered an independent continuation of the council of Pisa 104 
 
 Presentation of charges against the pope In February 1415. His readiness 
 at the beginning to abdicate in consequence of these charges. His later 
 subterfuges and intrigues. His flight on the 20th of March 106 
 
 The pope's letters from Schaffhausen. Threatening schism In the council. 
 Holding together of the free-minded members. Gerson's discourse on 
 the 23d of March concerning the authority of the council. Opposition 
 of the majority of cardinals. Proclamation of the princl])les of Gerson 
 in the name of the council on the 30th of March (omissions by cardinal 
 Zabarella). Proposal to exclude the cardinals in the transactions relat- 
 ing to reform. Discourse of the Benedictine Gentlanus against the pope 
 and the cardinals HI 
 
 b 
 
 « 
 
XIV TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Citation of tlie pope en the 2(1 of May. John a prisoner in Ratolfi^zell. 
 His deposition on the 29th of May. Acquiescence in the same on his 
 part. His removal to Gottlebcn 112 
 
 Negotiations with Gregory and Benedict. By Gregory's compliance and 
 in spite of Bi'nedict's obstinacy, the council succeeds in restoring unity 
 to the church. The two next problems ibr the council : reibrmation and 
 the election of a pope 112 
 
 Appointment of a collegium rcformatiorium already in August, 1415. Cor- 
 ruption of morals at Constance. Discourse of the Franciscan Bernard 
 Baptise 114 
 
 Nicholas of Clemangis on the council. His complaints of egotism, ambition, 
 party-zeal, want of true penitence at the council. His later letter to the 
 council. His warning against a ])remature election of a pope, proceed- 
 ing in part from his attarhment to Benedict 118 
 
 Controversy on the question which should take precedence, the reformation 
 or the election of a pope. Eflorts of the emperor Sigismund for the 
 former in alliance with the Germans and the English. Discourses of 
 Stephen of Prague and of the arch-bishop of Genoa. Fierce resistance 
 of the cardinals. Complaints against the Germans. Death of the arch- 
 bishop Hallam of Salisbury. Protest of the German nation on the 14th 
 of September, 1417. They finally yield 124 
 
 Resolution of the council respecting the frequent appointment of general 
 councils. Peace restored by the mediation of the bishop of Winchester. 
 Controversies about the form of the papal election. Choice of Martin Y. 126 
 
 Compla'nts of the French deputies before the emperor on the procrastina- 
 tion of reform ; and his answer. Plan of the reformation drawn up by 
 the Germans, also respecting the possibility of deposing a pope and on 
 the limitation of indulgences. Plan of reform drawn up by the pope 
 -with reference to the above. Concordats of the pope with the several 
 nations 127 
 
 Last session of the council on the 22d of April, 1518. Difficulties between, 
 the Poles and the Lithuanians. Their appeal from the pope to the next 
 general council. Constitution of Martin V. in contradiction with the 
 princij)lcs proclaimed at Constance. Gersou's Tractatus quomodo et an 
 llceat In causis fidei a summo pontifice appellare 128 
 
 Council of Paviain 1423. Transfer of the same to Siena. Letters missive 
 for the next "general council to meet in Basle in the year 1431. Ap- 
 j)ointment of Cesarini as legate. Death of Martin V. Eugene IV. 
 his successor. Disinclination of Cesarini to act as legate to this council. 
 His journey to Bohemia. His journey through Germany to Basle. ... 129 
 
 Designed transfer of the council to Bologna. Cesarini's opposition to the 
 design of Eugene. Hints at the disgrace that threatened the papal see 
 in conse(pience of such a measure, and refutation of the reasons assigned 
 by the pope for the transfer 133 
 
 SECTION SECOND. 
 
 RELATING TO THE HISTOKY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. P. 134. 
 
 I. The Reformatory movements in England. P. 134. 
 
 Way prepared for greater freedom in the expression of religious convictions 
 by the usurpations of the hierarchy since the time of Innocent HI. by 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. XV 
 
 Robert Grossheads, Roger Bacon, by the (juarrel with the incndieaiit 
 monks by Richard of Armagli. The English parHament under Edward 
 III 135 
 
 John WlckUf. Born 1324. Studied at Oxford. Zeal for service and 
 reh<non. The speculative element in him. Ills realism. His work 
 "on the last times of the church." 13G3 appointed a tutor in Canter- 
 bur v Hall by Islep. 1366 deposed by Simon Langham. Wicklifs ap- 
 peal to Rome. Ilis approval of the measure forbidding to })ay Peter's 
 pence to the pope. The chancery decides against him. Appointed 
 chaplain to the king. Connected with the duke of Lancaster. 13 72 
 made Doctor of Theology. Wicklif as king's envoy to Bruges. Finds 
 the papacy not founded in divine right 137 
 
 "Wicklifs principles of reform : his op|)Osition to the worldliness of the cler- 
 gy, and what he required of them. His exposition of the Ten Com- 
 mandments 138 
 
 Wicklif as an opponent of the mendicant monks 141 
 
 Wicklif as teacher of Theology and Philosophy at Oxford, and at the 
 same time parish priest at Lutterworth from the year 1375. The prom- 
 inence he gave to preaching. His idea of itinerant preachers 143 
 
 Society of " poor priests," afterwards called Lollards. Perhaps too literal 
 imitation of the a])ostolic church. Yet at all times a seminary for do- 
 mestic missions. WickUfs work : Why poor priests have no benefices ? 145 
 
 Wicklifs enemies, particularly among the mendicant monks. Their com- 
 plaint of the year 1376, on the ground of nineteen propositions taken 
 from his lectures 146 
 
 The three condemnatory bulls of Gregory XL of the year 1377. Unfav- 
 orable reception they met with in England 147 
 
 Wicklif protected by the civil power. The first court for the trial of Wick- 
 lif held by archbishop Sudbury at Lambeth : its dissolution. Second 
 court in the year 1378. Wicklifs declaration 148 
 
 WickUfs severe illness in the year 1379 : visit paid to him by the mendi- 
 cant monks • I'i^ 
 
 Wicklifs translation of the Bible in the year 1380 (John of Trevlsa). 
 Knighton's opinion of it. Wicklifs defence of it. The New Testament 
 intelligible to all 151 
 
 His twelve arguments against the doctrine of transubstantiation of the year 
 1381 • • • • • • • • 152 
 
 Wicklifs doctrine of the Lord's supper : attacks the accidentia sine subjecto 
 on rational and exegetical grounds. Contends against every mode of a 
 bodily presence of Christ, and against the Impanatlo of John of Paris. 
 Yet bread and wine not barely representative but efficacious signs. Dis- 
 tinction of a threefold mode of being of the body of Christ. ^Vant of 
 uniformity in his mode of expressing himself on this subject (explanation 
 of the words of institution). His zeal against the doctrine of the acci- 
 dentibus sine subjecto. His opinion respecting the adoration of the Ijost 157 
 
 Condemnation of the twelve arguments by the University of Oxford. 
 Wicklifs appeal to the king 157 
 
 Political movements, and their relation to AVicklif Insurrection of the 
 peasantry headed by John Balle 160 
 
 Wicklifs quite too political memorial to parliament. Courtney created arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury. Wicklifs more ^^olent attacks against the men- 
 dicant monks In the year 1382. Admonition of the Duke of Lancaster. 
 Courtney's earthquake-council. His ordinance directed against the 
 Wicklifite doctrines the king's warrant against the propagators of 
 
XVI TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 the same. TV'Icklirs confession of faith respecting tlie Lord's supper and 
 
 his tract in defence of himself against the earthquake council 163 
 
 WickUf, from the year 1382 in retirement at Lutterworth. His judgment 
 respecting the schism which had broken out in the meanwhile. New at- 
 tacks upon the popes occasioned bv the bulls of crusade and indulgence 
 issued bv Urban VL His bold replv to his citation to Home. His death 
 on the 31st of December, 1384 165 
 
 Wicklif's doctrines : connection of his philosophy and theology. Nominal- 
 ism something heretical. Against considering philosophical and theolog- 
 ical truths as opposed to one another. Harmony of thought and being. 
 Everything possible, actual. His view of Almighty power 167 
 
 His doctrine of preilestination. Rejection of the meritum de congruo. On 
 the causidity of evil. Sin as well as its })unishment requisite in order to 
 the beauty of the universe. Rejection of the idle questions of scholasti- 
 cism about en\pty possibilities 168 
 
 His genuinely protestant principle of sole reference to Christ. Hence his 
 opposition to the worship of saints 169 
 
 Wicklif opposed to the multiplication of sacraments. Confirmation a blas- 
 phemy against God. Bishop and presbyter the same in the time of St. 
 Paul. Against the secular goods of the church. Church confession not 
 unconditionally necessary, only inward penitence. Contends against the 
 doctrine of the Thesaurus meritorum supererogationis 171 
 
 On the degeneracy of the church in the second century. Necessity of abol- 
 ishing the monastic orders. His remarkable prediction of Luther's re- 
 formation. His old scholastic view of the doctrine of justification com- 
 bined with his reduction of everything to grace. His more spiritual 
 conception of the church. Contends against the necessity of a visible 
 head of the church — Also as of manifold gradations among the clergy. 1 73 
 
 2. Movements of Reform in Bohemia. P. 173. 
 A. The Forerunners of John IIiiss. P. 173. 
 
 Militz of Kremsla. Archdeacon at Prague and secretary of Charles IV. 
 His pious zeal tinctured with asceticism. 1363 assistant of the parish 
 
 priest at Bischofteinitz 1 75 
 
 His active lalx)rs as a preacher at Prague, at first with little success ; at a 
 later period, crowned with the happiest results. His influence on per- 
 sons of the female sex. Transfoi-mation of *' Little Venice.". . 177 
 
 His design of becoming a monk. Temporary suspension of preaching. His 
 
 work on Antichrist 180 
 
 His journey to Rome in the year 1367. His notification posted up at St. 
 Peter's Church. His arrest. Composition of his tract on Antichrist. His 
 
 liberation and return to Prague 181 
 
 Renewed a/'tivity at Prague. Education of young men. His beneficence. 
 
 His meekness 182 
 
 Complaint lodged against Militz by the Magister Klenkot. The bulls of 
 
 Gregory XL Militz dies at Avignon in 1374 ... 183 
 
 Conrad of Wahlhausen, an Austrian. Augustinian and priest at Vienna 
 from 1315. The jubilee of Clement VL His journey to Rome. 1360 
 parish priest at Leitmerltz. Then preacher at Prague. His sermons 
 
 against antichristian corruption 185 
 
 His influence upon the .Jews. Contends against the mendicant monks. At- 
 tacks their simony and mock-holiness. The degeneracy of monachism 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. XVl'l 
 
 (Christ never begged). Quackery with pretended relics. Accusations 
 brought against Conrad by the mendicants and his defence of himself 
 Complaint lodged against Conrad in the year 1864 and his tract in de- 
 fence of himself 191 
 
 Declines a call to Vienna. Dies at Prague, 1369 192 
 
 Matildas of Janow. His relation to Huss. Magister Parisiensis. Disciple 
 of Militz. His journeys. His conversion. In 1381 master of the cathe- 
 dral at Prague. Dies 1394 ... 194 
 
 Janoid's Work^ De regulis Veteris et Novi Testamenti. The exegctical 
 matter in it of little importance. Contains contemplations on the history of 
 his time, and intimations with regard to the future. Made up of single 
 essays. Chronological characteristics. Occasions upon which it was 
 ■written. Complaints of the worldliness of the clergy. Defence against 
 the objection that the vileness of the clergy and monks was exposed to 
 the people by works in the vernacular tongue. Antichrist has long since 
 made his appearance. His definition of Antichrist (type of the secular- 
 ized hierarchy.) On the false miracles of Antichrist. Progress of 
 Christ's and Antichrist's kingdom, side by side. On the sending forth of 
 the angels, i. e. the true heralds of the faith, for the sifting of the nations. 
 Argues against the expectation that Ellas would reappear in person. . . 202 
 
 Attacks the corruptions of the church in detail. Incipient germs of reform 
 in his work. Opposed to the rending asunder of the orderly-disposed 
 union of parts in the church. The haughty self-exaltation of the pope, 
 the bishops, the priests. Traces the disobedience of the people towards 
 their clergy to the licentiousness and carnal sense of the latter. His 
 view of the nature of church government lying at the ground of these 
 remarks • 204 
 
 Against overloading the church with human ordinances and the multiplica- 
 tion of ecclesiastical laws. On burdening the conscience by the same. 
 On the contempt thence resulting for these laws and at the same time 
 for the divine commands. Men led away from Christ by these ordinan- 
 ces. The law is not for a righteous man. Defends himself against the 
 reproach of despising all human laws. Predicts the cessation of ordi- 
 nances. Christ the sole rule for all things. His remarkable exposition 
 of the apostolical ordinances of the assembly at Jerusalem. Necessity 
 of bringing back the church to the simple apostolical laws. Monastic 
 orders might be dispensed with 210 
 
 Foundation of the true unity of the church in the immediate reference of 
 the religious consciousness to Christ. The unity thence proceeding as op- 
 posed to the differences bet^veen nations, growing out of sin. What con- 
 stitutes the worship of God in Christian times. Against the Pharlseeism 
 and self-riirhteousness of his time. The idea of the church as the com- 
 munity of the elect. Gives prominence to the universal priesthood of 
 the faithful. Vigorously disputes the supposed opposition betwen spirit- 
 uals and seculars (on the right relation of priests and laymen. How 
 far the predicate " holy" belongs to all Christians. On the degrees of 
 hoHness. On the pride of the clergy and monks.) Contends against 
 the distinction made between the concilia and the praecepta 217 
 
 The question respecting the frequent and daily communion of the laity, 
 Janow's zeal for this, and by implication for the Lord's Supper under 
 both the forms. Janow's special essay on this subject ; on the motives 
 and arguments of the opponents of dally communion. On the pious 
 tendencies of the female sex. The spiritual participation of Christ being 
 daily permitted, so also should the bodily be granted. None but openly 
 
XVm TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 known pinners should be debarred from the communion. Comparison 
 of tlie communiration of Chi-ist in the holy supper with the milk fur- 
 nished to the child. The laitv often more worthy of the communion 
 than the clerjrv. He who considers himself unworthy of the communion 
 is really worthy, and yice versa. The holy supper the hijrhest act of 
 wor^liip. On the slavish fear felt by nominal Christians with re^rard to 
 the communion. His complaints respecting the neglect of the holy sup- 
 per. Against the perverted ap[)lication of the 1st Corinth. 1 1 : 23. 
 Against the notion that orce partaking of the communion is suflicient. 
 Ilis view of the mutual relation of baptism and the Lord's supper. The 
 Lord's supper is food for week men and not reserved for the angels. 
 Against the mock-penance preparatory to communing once at the Easter 
 festival. His answer to the objection drawn from the example of the 
 ancient hermits. Against the necessity of a distinct and special prepara- 
 tion for the communion. Defends those lavmen who lomred after the 
 daily ronuuunion against the charge of presumption. Mode in which the 
 Lonl's supper was observed in the time of the aposthis and one thousand 
 yeai-s after them. Against the objection that the spiritual communion is 
 suflicient. Against the oljection that the Lord's supper would become an 
 ever}' day afl'air by two frequent enjoyment of it. The spiritual enjoy- 
 ment a suflicient substitute for the bodily, only in case the longing after 
 the latter is disappointed without any fault of the Christian. The vindica- 
 tion of the right of laymen to partake under both forms everywhere pre- 
 supposed 231 
 
 The schism in the church traced to the self-seeking spirit of the cardinals. 
 The church in its essence exalted above this schism. The unity of the 
 church to be restored only by subduing the self-seeking spirit. Party- 
 spirit in the church a fore-token of the last times. Still, Janow considers 
 the riirht to be chiefly on the side of Urban VI 232 
 
 Opposition between the party in favor of and the party opposed to reform. 
 Svnod of Prague of the year 1389. Pretended recantation of Janow at 
 this synod. His later attack upon it, particularly in reference to the wor- 
 ship of images and the forbidding of daily communion 235 
 
 B. John ITuss, the Bohemian Reformer. P. 239. 
 
 John Huss. Born in Husinetz on the Cth of July, 1369. Of poor pa- 
 rents. Studies at Prague. His teacher Stanislaus of Znaim. In 1369, 
 Magister. Influence of Militz and Janow upon his character. In 1401, 
 preacher to Bethlehem chapel. (Spirit of the foundation-charter of this 
 chapel.) His activity as a preacher and curer of souls. Character of 
 the archbishop Zbynek of Prague. The high estimation in which he 
 held Huss at the bemnninjr. Places him on the committee of examina- 
 tion into the subject of the miraculous blood at "Wilsnack. Tract of 
 Huss, l)e omni sanguine Christi glorificato 239 
 
 Inward opposition between Huss and Zbynek. Reformatory tendency of 
 Huss pointing ba<'k rather to Janow than to Wicklif His connection 
 with ]VickliJiiism of importance simply on account of the consequences at 
 first outwardly resultinjj from it 241 
 
 Connection between Oxford and Prague. Wicklifs influence, especially 
 in a philosophical respect. Early acquaintance of Huss with Wicklifs 
 writings. His religious and philosophical interest in them. Wicklifs at- 
 ta<-k upon the doctrine of transubstantiation without influence upon 
 Huss. (Argument against the opposite view of Palacky.) The inter- 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. xix 
 
 polatcd Oxford documents in testimony of Wicklif's orthodoxy. [The 
 Antithesis Christi et Antichristi.] The opposition between Reahsm and 
 Xominalism ns a matter of national interest between Bohemians and Ger- 
 mans. Merits of Ilnss in promoting the culture of the Bohemian lan- 
 guage. The Bohemian theological party : Peter of Znaim, Stanislaus of 
 Znaim, (early judgment of the latter respecting Wicklif and his doctrine 
 of transubstantiatlon.) Paletz and Huss 245 
 
 Influence of Jerome of Praf/ue. [Jerome confounded with Nicholas of 
 Faulfisch.] On the Wicklifite movements in Prague. His zeal for sci- 
 ence. [Thomas of Stitnag.] Relations of Huss with Jerome. Enthu- 
 siasm of the latter for the writings of Wicklif 246 
 
 Convocation of the University on the 28th of May, 1403. Dispute on the 
 forty-Jive Wicldljite propositions. Condemnation of these propositions by 
 the preponderating votes of the Germans. Slight influence exerted by 
 this condemnation. Bullof Innocent VH, A.D. 1405, and synodal ordinance 
 Zbynec, A D. 1406 against the Wicklifite doctrines. Law of the latter 
 to secure the maintenance of the doctrine of transubstantiatlon. Assem- 
 bling of the Bohemian members of the University in the year 1408, and 
 their merely conditional condemnation of the forty-five propositions. 
 Lectures on Wicklif's Dialogus, Trialogus and De Eucharistia for- 
 bidden 248 
 
 Good understanding preserved thus far between Zbynek and Huss. The 
 latter's diocesan discourse in the year 1407. Examination before the 
 archbishop's court of several clergymen accused of Wickllfitlsm, particu- 
 larly Nicholas of Welenowltz. Huss interposes in their behalf and ad- 
 dresses a letter full of reproaches to the archbishop. Stephen of Dolas' 
 Antiwlkleffus of the year 1408, evidencing the high state of excitement 
 between the Wicklifite and the hierarchical party 252 
 
 Milder procedure of Zbynek. His declaration at the diocesan synod at 
 Prague, in July,1408 that Bohemia was free from Wicklifite heresy. . . . 252 
 
 Koyal decree respecting the relation of votes of the different nations at the 
 Prague University. Emigration of the Germans from Prague in Sep- 
 tember, 1408 253 
 
 Important influence of this emigration on the progress of the struo-frle for 
 reform : appearance of the hitherto concealed differences among the Bo- 
 hemians. Spreading abroad of injurious reports concerning the heresies 
 of the party of Huss. Injury to the city of Prague. Huss and Jerome 
 considered as the authors of the expulsion of the Germans 255 
 
 King Wenceslaus goes over from the party of Gregory XII, to that of the 
 council of Pisa. Opposition of the clergy. The clergy attacked by the 
 king. Huss in favor of the council of Pisa. His sermons against the 
 corruption of the clergy. Reproaches cast upon hun for this reason and 
 his defence of himself 258 
 
 Complaints of the clergy of Prague, against Huss, before the archbishop, in 
 the year 1409. The Magister Mauritius commissioned tx) inquire into 
 them. Complaints of Huss against Zbynek and citation of the latter to 
 Rome 259 
 
 Zbynek espouses the cause of Alexander Y. Alexander's bull of Decem- 
 ber, 1409 against the Wicklifite heresies and preaching in private chapels. 
 Publication of the same in March, 1410. Wenceslaus's anger excited 
 against Zbynek. Appeal of Huss ad Papum melius informandum. 
 Zbynek forbids preaching in private chapels, and resistance of Huss. 
 Demands the delivering up of Wicklif s writings, which are burned. Vio- 
 lent commotions occasioned thereby in Prague. New appeal of Huss to 
 
XX TABLE OF CONTEXTS. 
 
 John XXTIT. Writings of IIuss in jujstification cf his disobedience to 
 
 Zbvnek, and in defence of several doctrines of Wicklif (De Trinitate, 
 
 De deciniis. Defensio articulorum qnorundani Joannis Wicleff 267 
 
 Huss prejiared to sntler martyrdom, and liis forebodinji; of it 268 
 
 Misapprehended dot-trine of lluss rcsj)eftiiin: property 270 
 
 His tract De corpore Christi : gives prominence to the practical religious 
 element, holds fast the doctnne of transubstantiation, but disapproves 
 the too crass mode of expres.sing it 271 
 
 Citation of Hiiss to Bologna by Cardinal Colonna. Interposition of Wen- 
 ceslaus with the Pope in behalf of IIuss. IIuss excommunicated. Trans- 
 fer of the process to Cardinal Zabarclla. Still later to Cardinal Brancas. 
 Prague })ut under interdict. Wenzel's zeal for IIuss and against the 
 clergy. Zbynek makes advances towards a com])romise 273 
 
 Appointment of a commission for settling terms of peace in July, 1411. 
 Conditions of agreement proposed. Confession of faith set forth by Huss 
 in September, 1411. Necessary failure of this merely outward compact. 274 
 
 Zl)ynek's letter of exculjiation addressed to the king. His flight and his 
 death . 275 
 
 The new archbishop Albic. Bidl of crusade and indulgence issued by John 
 XXIII. against Ladislaus of Naples. Huss consulted with regard to it, 
 and his declaration. Indignation at the beginning professed against the 
 bull by Paletz. Change of opinion by him and Stanislaus of Znaim. 
 Proposal of Paletz in the name of the theological faculty 278 
 
 Separation of IIuss from Paletz. Disputation of IIuss on the matter of 
 inrlulgr^nrcs, 7th of June, 1411, and his Quaestio de indulgentiis thence 
 originating. (The tliree motives which induced him to write this 
 tract : Return to the authority of the sacred Scriptures. Disapprobation 
 of the bull as not proceeding from love. On the import and extent of 
 priestly absolution. That it is not permitted to the pope and clergy to 
 contend for secular things. Even the laity ought not to con)j)ly with the 
 requisitions of the bull. Against the plenitude of power claimed by the 
 pope to bestow indulgences. On the hurtful influence of the latter. On 
 the supreme authority of Scrij)ture.) Fiery discoui-se of Jerome on the 
 occasion of this disputation. Burning of the papal bull. Dissatisfaction 
 of IIuss with the passionate heat of individuals among his adherents. . 287 
 Royal edict against all public resistance to the papal bulls. Persevering 
 
 activity of Huss and increasing number of his adherents 288 
 
 Sentence [jassed on the three artisans at Prague. Interposition of Huss in 
 their behalf, and the promise given him. Their execution. Solemn con- 
 veyance of the dead bodies to Bethlehem chapel. Part taken by Huss 
 
 in these transactions 290 
 
 Paletz at the head of the eir/ht doctors. Formal condemnation of the forty- 
 five projiositions by these persons, Avith the addition of six other proposi- 
 tions. Succeed in procuring a royal command forbidding the preaching 
 of these doctrines. Reproof of the faculty by the king. Their justifica- 
 tion of themselves. Readiness of Huss to answer before the king's privy 
 council on condition that each party should agree, in case of conviction, 
 to suffer the penalty of the stake. This proposal declined by the 
 
 faculty. Futile admonition of the privy-eouncil . . 293 
 
 ^lichael de Causis at Rome. Transfer of the cause of Huss to Cardinal 
 Peter de St. Angelo. Bann and interdict imposed on IIuss under the 
 most fearful formulas. Huss to be delivered up, and Bethlehem chapel 
 to he destroyed root and branch. Unsuccessful measures of violence 
 resorted to by the opponents of Huss at the consecration-festival of 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. XXI 
 
 the churcli of Prague. Jesonic'a demonstration of the illegality of the 
 pope's proceedings. Huss appeals to Christ. Dangerous disturbances 
 at Prague in consequence of the interdict. Huss leaves Praf/ue. Albic's 
 resignation of his office at the close of 1412. Conrad of Vechta his 
 successor 295 
 
 Resolution by the college of the elders of the country to hold a country- 
 synod (at Bohniisch-Brod) before Christmas of 1412. Propositions pre- 
 sented by the two parties, and their entire opposition in principle. Sy- 
 nods at Prague on the 6th of Feb'y, 1413, resulting in nothing. (Huss re- 
 presented by Jenscnic. Declaration of Jacobellus of Mies.) Royal 
 peace-commission. Defeat of the hierarchical party. The king once more 
 favors the party of Huss 297 
 
 Huss at Kozi-pradek. Composes his work De ecclesia : contrast drawn be- 
 twixt the clerus Christi and the clerus Antichristi. Reasons for his non- 
 appearance at Rome. Proof of the unchristian character of the inter- 
 dict. His more spiritual conception of the church. The church, the 
 imiversitas praedestinatorum. Distinction of the church rexe, et nuncu- 
 pative. Uncertainty respecting predestination. On the dispersion of 
 the church throughout all the world, in opposition to Paletz. Christ 
 alone the all-sufficient head of the church. On the dignity of the pope 
 and cardinals. Papacy first began to exist after the time of Constantine. 
 Against the holding of worldly property by the church. Rejects uncon- 
 ditional obedience to the pope and prelates with regard to matters indif- 
 ferent. On the Christian people who were beginning to be enlightened. 
 Huss pained in contemplating the secularization of the church. Traces 
 the schism to this as the cause. Adopts the theory of different TQOTioig 
 naidtiui;. Reverts to the authority of scripture. Erudition of Huss. 
 The four principles of reformation of the later Hussite party expressed 
 in this work 307 
 
 Similar opinions contained in his book against Stanislaus of Znaim and 
 in his letters to Prachatic : against the misconstruction of his lan- 
 guage as tending to a revolutionary spirit. Against the necessity of a 
 visible head of the church. On the tendency of the externalization of 
 the church to promote heresies. Against confounding theology and phi- 
 losophy. On the continuous agency of the Holy Spirit in the church as 
 the sole tiling necessary. His firm determination to keep steadfast by 
 the truth. On the comparatively small importance of being called a 
 heretic 310 
 
 Letters written by Huss from his place of exile, particularly to Prachatic : 
 his consolation in trouble. His exhortation to steadfastness. His pain 
 and scruples of conscience at being separated from his church. His let- 
 ters to the same. His confident expectation that the truth would triumph. 
 On the pretended assaults of Antichrist. Warning against fickle-minded- 
 ness. Sympathy with the cause of Huss also in other cities of Bohemia. 
 His letter of exhortation to the parish-priests at Prachatic 316 
 
 His frequent secret visits to Prague. Transfer of his residence to Cracowic. 316 
 
 Time draws near for holding the council of Constance. Huss invited to at- 
 tend with the assurance of a safe conduct from the emperor. [Refuta- 
 tion of the sophistical interpretations of the letter of safe conduct.] Huss 
 resides at Prague in the August of 1414. Examined before the pope's 
 inquisitor, and the latter's testimonial of this examination. Huss writes a 
 letter of thanks to the emperor Sigismund. AVarned by his friends not 
 to put confidence in the emperor's promises. Farewell letter of Huss to 
 his community. Leaves Prague on the 11th of October under the es- 
 
Xxii TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 cort of tlie kiilglirs Clilum and "Wenzel of Duba, of Mladenowlc and 
 Jolni Cardinalis of Reinsteln 320 
 
 Journey of Hus?? lliroujzh Germany. His favorable reception. The Par- 
 ish priest of Pernau. Conversation at Nurenberg. The doctor of Bi- 
 brach. Trans<-ri])t of the ten coniniandments 321 
 
 Arrives at Constance on tlie 3d of November. The first four weeks. Agi- 
 tations excited by Michael de Causis, Paletz, and Wenzel Tiem. Hate- 
 ful ].roposition of Michael. Suspension of the interdict. Attempt to 
 separate the cause of IIuss from all public transactions. Huss demands 
 an opon trial before the council 323 
 
 IIuss proceeds to prepare himself to appear before the council. De fidei 
 suae elucidatione [the agreement of his views with the faith of the 
 church.] Defends himself against the charge of contending against saint- 
 woishii-), De pace (peace with God the foundation of peace with one's 
 neighbor.) De sufhcientia legis Christi ad regendam ecclesiam. (Protest 
 aL^ainst the charge of obstinacy. On the validity even of human laws, 
 and particularly of the jus canonicum) 326 
 
 Occasion of tlie seizure and imprisonment of IIuss on the 28th of Xovem- 
 bei. 1414. [Oil the report that Huss attempted flight] Chlum's repeated 
 protest against this procedure. Reproaches uttered by him before the 
 jjope, and the latter's exculj)ation of himself. Huss committed to prison 
 in the cells of a Dominican convent on the 6th of December 328 
 
 Chlum's declaration in the name of the emperor on the 24th of December. 
 Sigismund's behavior in this matter. Deputation of the council on the 
 1st of January, 1415, protesting against his interference in matters re- 
 latintr to faith. Si<nsmund's later vindication of himself to the Bohemian 
 estates 330 
 
 Committee appointed to examine Huss, 1st December, 1414. He is not al- 
 lowed to have an attorney. Sickness of Huss. Kind treatment expe- 
 rienced from his keepers. His letters intercepted. Paletz's conduct 
 towards the prisoner. Temper exhibited by Huss while in prison. His 
 dream about the pictures of Christ in Bethlehem chapel. Huss declines 
 a pnvate arrangement of his case, and demands to be heard publicly be- 
 fore the council. Hopes at the beginning to be aided by the emperor. 
 His anxious regard for his friends. His minor doctrinal and ethical 
 tracts composed in prison. (On the citations contained in them. His 
 views respecting the law of the Sabbath. Spiritual conception of bless- 
 edness. The four principal mysteries of Christian faith. Express con- 
 fessioii of the doctrine of transubstantiation. His view of John vi 337 
 
 Jacobcllus of Prague comes out against the withdrawal of the cup. Fable 
 about the Waldcnsian Peter of Dresden.) Huss consulted with regard 
 to tin's matter. His frank declaration 339 
 
 Flight of Jolin XXI II, and view taken of it by Huss. Embarrassments 
 thence arisiu!jf. IIuss conveyed to Gottleben. His situation worse than 
 befoi'c, and he falls sick again. His fortitude in suflering. Appointment 
 of a new committee of investigation on the 6th of April, 1415. Stronger 
 complaints against IIuss. Interposition of the Bohemian Knights in be- 
 half of IIuss, united with indirect complaints against bishop John of 
 Eeitomysl. The latter's defence of himself Promise given of transfer- 
 ring IIuss to another prison in Constance, and of a public hearing on the 
 5th of June. Little confidence placed by Huss in these promises 342 
 
 Huss conveyed to the Franciscan convent, in Constance, at the beginning 
 of June. His first hearing on the 5th of June. Interposition of the 
 emp.eror to prevent his condemnation instanter on the ground of extracts 
 
TABLE OF CONTEXTS. XXIU 
 
 made from lils wvkingg. His writmgs laid before the council. Session 
 broken up on account of the wild outcries against him. Courage ex- 
 hibited by IIuss in his trial of the 6th of June. Second hearimi on the 
 7th of June, in presence of the emperor. Accused of denying the 
 doctrine of transubstantiatlon. His defence of himself especially against 
 d'Ailly and Zabarella. Accused of holding Wlcklifite doctrines. Of 
 promoting insun-cctlon among the people. Of creating a^ schism be- 
 twixt the%plritual and the secular power. Political suspicions excited 
 against Huss by D'Ailly. Chlum puts in a word in his defence. Invita- 
 tion to IIuss by D'Ailly and the emperor that he should submit to the 
 sentence of the council Huss defends himself against the charge of ob- 
 stinacy. His letters concerning this hearing. He demands a hearing 
 in Avlilch he can answer freely ^49 
 
 Third hearing on the Sth of June. A series of articles of complaint laid be- 
 fore the council, taken mostly from his work De ecclesia. The fittli 
 article, relating to his doctrine of predestination. The twelfth article, 
 relating to the derivation of the papal dignity. The twenty-second article, 
 relating to intentio. The article that a person in the condition of mortal 
 sin cordd not be pope, king, etc. (Impression made on the emperor.) 
 D'Ailly's political suspicions. Disputation with Paletz.) On the forty- 
 five propositions of Wlcklif. The article on the necessity of a visible 
 head of the church. Gerson's articles against Huss. [Whence the pecu- 
 liar indignation of Huss towards Gerson ?] D'Ailly's exhoi^tatlon ad- 
 vising him to submit to the opinion of the council. Readiness of Huss to 
 allow himself to be taught. The emperor admonishes him to abjure. Za- 
 berella's promise of a mild form of abjuration. The emperor's repeated 
 admonition that he should submit to the council. Fanatical opinions ex- 
 pressed by some of the prelates. Wonderful presence of mind and power 
 of faith exhibited by Huss in this trial. Shameless asseverations of Pa- 
 letz and Michael de Causis. Party prejudice of D'Ailly in favor of Pa- 
 letz. Chlum's cordial embrace 3^6 
 
 Proposition of the emperor to the council after this hearing. Eventual 
 resolution of tlie council in case that Huss should recant 357 
 
 Expectation of Huss to suffer martyrdom. His letter to Bohemia on the 
 10th of June. New hopes spring up in the mind of Huss. His intense 
 longing after a hearing where he might be allowed to express himself 
 freely. His warning against putting confidence in princes. .. 360 
 
 Remai-kable Interviews'of Huss with an unknown Individual proposing terms 
 of recantation. Who and Avhat he was. [Earlier erroneous opinions on 
 this point.] The form of recantation proposed by this unknown person. 
 Huss replies with thanks, declining the proposal. Persevering pains of 
 the unknown to convince Huss, and his answers to the latter's reasons. 
 Huss again declmes * * * ' ^ 
 
 Various attempts made to induce Huss to recant. Visit made to him by 
 Paletz • ; ^^^ 
 
 Impression produced on Huss by the imprisonment and deposition of John 
 XXIII : sentiments uttered by him on this subject. His resolution not 
 to allow himself to be frightened by the council. His prophetic dreams. 
 Huss a f/enuine Christian marti/r : his noble letter of the 23d of June. 
 His confession of himself. His grief at the divisions among the Bo- 
 hemian people. His apology to Paletz ^ • . •_ ^^^ 
 
 Delicate concern shown by Huss for his surviving friends. His joy at the 
 determination expressed by Chlum and Wenzel of Duba to retire from 
 the world. His letters of exhortation addressed to Chrlstiann of Pracha- 
 
Xxiv TABLE OF CONTEXTS. 
 
 tic. His last salutations and commissions to the people of Prague on the 
 fourth of July • 367 
 
 Official deputation of the council on the 1st of July. Deputation on the 
 part of the emperor. Chlum's address. Moving reply of IIuss. The 
 bitter words of a bishop 368 
 
 De(jradation of Ha x, and hU exciition on the Gth of Juh/. Introductory 
 discourse. Huss attempts to answer for himself. Receives strength in 
 prayer. Puts on the priesdy vestments. Once more challenged to re- 
 cant. Deprived one by one of the vestments. Mocked and cursed. 
 Delivered up for execution to Louis of Bavana. His address to passers 
 bv. His praver on the place of execution. Impression made by it on 
 the laity who'were present. Takes leave of his keepers. Final chal- 
 lenv^e to recant bv the marshal of the empire. His fiery death. The 
 scattering of his ashes • oti 
 
 Jerome nf Prague. His residence in Bohemia and IMoravia, at Paris, and 
 at Heidelberg. Examination of him at Paris. His arrest by the official 
 at Vienna and his escape by flight. His letter addressed to the official 
 written from Wiekow. His intended vindication of himself at Con- 
 stance. His residence at Ofen in the year 1410. His arrest and libera- 
 tion. His residence in Poland and Lithuania, particularly in Cracow. 
 At Constance accused of being inclined to favor the Greek church. His 
 vindication of himself in this regard. His secret visit to Constance 
 on the 4th of April, 1415. His letter from Uberlingen. Notice posted 
 up by him at Constance. Sets out to return to Bohemia. Arrested near 
 Hirschan. Brought before the council on the 23d of May, 1415. His 
 harsh imprisonment. Letter interposing in his behalf drawn up by the 
 Bohemian knights on the 2d of September. Jerome's public recantation 
 on the 23d of September. His continued imprisonment. Appointment 
 of a new commission 377 
 
 His two hearings, on the 23d and 26th of May, 1416. His eloquence and 
 presence of mind. He takes back his former recantation. Allowed a 
 respite of forty days. Description by Poggio of the impression pro- 
 duced by Jerome's speech 379 
 
 Sentence passed and executed on Jerome on the 30th of May. His con- 
 stancy as a martyr. Description of his martyrdom by Poggio 380 
 
 3. The Friends of God in Germany. P. 380—412. 
 
 On the friends of God in general. Religious commotions in Germany ever 
 since the end of the 13th century, called forth especially by spiritual 
 and bodilv distress. Profound feeling characteristic of the German 
 people. Connected mystical societies, particularly in south-west Ger- 
 many. The name Friends of God. Their relation to the scholastic 
 theology. The spiritual leaders of the laity from the number of the 
 Friends of God compared with the common ecclesiastics. Letter of 
 the Friends of God in Strassburg to the collective body of the clergy by 
 occasion of the pope's iuterdict. The Friends of God hold fast to the 
 standing ecclesiastical order. Conscientiously fulfilled all the appointed 
 exercises of religion, at the same time that they warned men against the 
 externalization of religion and all imagined meritoriousness of good 
 ■works 336 
 
 Various kinds of hostility to the Friends of God. Their spiritual leaders. 
 Complete submission to them. Rulmann Merswin. His course of life. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. XXV 
 
 His book on the nine rocks. His uncKurclily tenets 389 
 
 Nicholas of Basle. Tauler's Friend of God. A Waldensian, and at the 
 same time a mystic. His influential and prudent activity. Spread of 
 German writings among the laity. His return to Holy Scripture and to 
 the Holy S[)irit. His defence of the Apostle Paul against the reproach 
 of vain glory. He is burnt at Vienne 392 
 
 Contemporaneous wildly extravagant, pantheistic mysticism. Strong 
 contrast betwixt the theistic and pantheistic Friends of God. At the 
 same time many points of transition between the two. Master Echart, 
 provincial of the Dominican order for Saxony. His pantheistic utter- 
 ances on the being of God. The Logos. True righteousness, etc. 
 Condemnation of twenty-six propositions of Echart. His submission. 
 Bull of John XXII, in the year 1329, against the holding forth of such 
 doctrines before the laity 396 
 
 The pantheistic, quietistic notions and the mistaken strivings after freedom 
 attacked by Ruysbroch and Tauler. John Ruyshroch of Brussels. His 
 contest with a wife belonging to the sect of the Free Spirit. Coun- 
 sellor to many • ^^l 
 
 His writings an evidence of his practical activity. His efforts against the 
 spread of infidelity. Only a seeming inclination of isolated expressions 
 in his writings to pantheism. He holds fast to God revealed in Christ. 
 Condemns a? well against the one-sided, contemplative bent as against the 
 externalization of the church-tendency. Gives prominence to the will 
 as a lever to the higher life. Opposed to excessive indulgence of the 
 feelings. Mental trials as an exercise of self-denial 407 
 
 John Tauler. Born in Strassburg, 1290. In 1308, a Dominican. Studies at 
 Paris. Labors on the Rhine. Dies in 1361 407 
 
 Contends against the inclination to run into externals. Against the reliance 
 on saints or angels. Exercise in external things a preparatory school to 
 spiritual experience. On the uniting of practical with contemplative 
 habits. Warns against an excessive indulgence of mere feelings and 
 against excessive self-reflection ;-on the right method of using and over- 
 coming temptations 411 
 
 Henry Suso of Suabia. Dominican. Born in 1300, died 1365. His 
 writings. Christ the way to God. The practical following of the exam- 
 ple of Christ better than excitements of feeling. Patience in suffering 
 better than miracles • • • ^ '^12 
 
 The processions of the self-castigators or Flagellants. Their origin in Italy 
 by occasion of the contests between the Guelphs and Ghibellines. 
 Spread of the same Into Germany during the desolations of the black 
 plague. Inhibition of the same by Clement VI. Heretical tendency 
 attaching itself to them. The Crucifrates 412 
 
 General Index 413 
 
CHURCH HISTORY, 
 
 SIXTH PERIOD. rRO:\r BONIFACE VIII. TO THE COMMENCEMENT 
 
 OF THE REFORMATION IN 1517. 
 
 SECTION FIRST. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE PAPACY, AND OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 The period of Church History which we now propose to consider, 
 is one where an old creation of Christianity, showing signs of decay 
 and an ever increasing tendency to corruption, is passing over to the 
 new one which was destined to succeed it. The peculiarity of such 
 a period of transition, conducting from the dissolution of an old, to 
 the dawning life of a new world, is, that on the one hand, we see all 
 the corruptions that had so long been preparing, finally reach their 
 highest point, and on the other, occasioned and urged forward by those 
 very corruptions, the reaction of new tendencies of the Christian spirit, 
 betokening new and better times. The stirrings of a new spirit, man- 
 ifesting itself with fresh and ever increasing vigor in its struggles with 
 the old, and the multiform combinations in which new and old appear 
 commingled, form the significant feature of this period. Such periods 
 of transition are of peculiar interest, because we see in them the first 
 unfolding of those germs in which the future lies hidden. These re- 
 marks apply in a particular manner to that portion of the history of 
 the papacy which we propose, first of all, to consider. The power of 
 the^ papacy, having its seat in the affections of men, and resting on 
 their most profound convictions, could not be overthrown by any force 
 coming from Avithout. Every struggle, as we have seen,*^in which it 
 was aimed to effect this overthrow, resulted eventually in a failure, so 
 long as this power in the mind of the nations was a necessary one in 
 the historical progress of the church. But this power must prepare 
 the way for its own destruction by its increasing worldliness, and dese- 
 cration to subserve selfish ends ; and thus were called forth, in ever 
 increasing force, the reactions of the Christian spirit struggling for 
 freedom, and attempts at reform constantly growing more violent. Such 
 
 VOL. V. 1 
 
2 BOXIFACE viir. 
 
 a state of things we shall see developing itself more and more distinctly 
 from the time of Boniface YIII. and onward. This pope, a man 
 without any pretensions to spiritual character, or even moral Avorth, 
 carried ])apal absolutism to the higliest pitch it ever reached ; and he 
 was forced to see himself reduced to the most severe humiliations ; nor 
 can we fail to recognize the guiding hand of a higher wis-.lom, wlien 
 ■we observe how the humiliations to which he was reduced contributed, 
 by the consequences that followed, to bring on that whole train of suc- 
 ceedinir contests which made the existinir church-svstem of the medi- 
 eval theocracy totter to its foundation. We shall here be able to trace 
 the connection of one link with another in the chain of these great 
 events, down to the time of the general councils. 
 
 Cardinal Benedict Cajetan, a man supremely governed by consider- 
 ations of worldly interest, after having by crafty management, pro- 
 cured the abdication of his predecessor Celestin, whose temper 
 presented the strongest contrast to his own, succeeded next, by the 
 same arts, in reaching the consummation of all his A\ishes and designs, 
 the papal chair ; and his whole administration was of a piece with 
 such a beginning. His suspicions compelled him to keep his prede- 
 cessor closely confined ; for he was afraid that Celestin might be per- 
 suaded to reassert his claims to the papal dignity ; and was certain 
 that if he did so, he would be backed up by a party of malcontents 
 who had always denied the lawfulness of his abdication, since they 
 maintained that he who held the highest station on earth, the pope, 
 could never, either by his own act or that of others, be discharged 
 from the res[)onsibility which God had laid on him. Constant additions 
 would naturally be made to this party, in consequence of the manner 
 in which Boniface administered the papacy, and they w^ould welcome 
 any opportunity of securing for themselves such a rallying point. The 
 anxiety of Boniface was assuredly, therefore, not without foundation. 
 Celestin, however, bore his confmement and the dishonorable treatment 
 to which he was subjected, with calm resignation ; and in this confine- 
 ment he met his end in a manner worthy of his pious life. A report, 
 which, if not true, shows at least in what light Boniface was regarded 
 by his contemporaries, charges him with the crime of taking off Celes- 
 tin by poison. 
 
 Boniface manifested from the beginning, that the motives by wdiich 
 he was supremely governed, were ambition, avarice and revenge. Con- 
 scientious scruples never deterred him from resorting to any means 
 whereby something more could be added to his treasures.^ The pope's 
 
 ' A contemporary, John Yillani, the It was allowable to do anything to ad- 
 
 Florentinc historian, says of him tiiat he vani-e tlie intcn-sts of tlie clnircli. The 
 
 knew how to maintain and promote tlie same writer remarks that he was a man 
 
 interests of the church. {Seppe l)eiie man- of lufty sjiirii, (molto magiianimo.) and 
 
 tenere e avanzare le ragioni della chicsa) understood well huw to jilay the lord (e 
 
 But what interests? lie explains by say- signorile, lib. 8, cap. 6) ; and he says that 
 
 ing the pope accumulated avast amount he was niuih given to worldly pomp, which 
 
 of money for the purjjuse of aggrantlizing became his iiigh station (vago fu molto 
 
 the chunh, and cnnobhng his family, hav- della pom]ia mondana serondo suo staio — 
 
 ing no scruple.-> about the means (nou fa- lil). 8, cap. 64; rfr. Muratori script, rer. 
 
 ceudo conscienza di guadagno), for he suid, italic, torn. Xlll.) 
 
PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 3 
 
 plenltade of power, the Interest of the church, must serve to palliate 
 the worst oppressions. lie sowed the seeds of a great deal of corrup- 
 tion, too, in the next succeeding times, by elevating, without the least 
 regard to the good of the church, his own kinsmen to tlie rank of 
 cardinals, or to the higher spiritual dignities. One bad means to 
 which he resorted to rej)lenish his treasury, was taking advantage of 
 the great festival connected with the ushering in of the fourteenth 
 century : whether the fact was, that the pope's cupidity merely avail- 
 ed itself of an occurrence which would have taken place witliout his 
 seeking, or whether the whole thing was purely a contrivance of his 
 own. As the beginning of the new century drew near, a report was 
 circulated through Rome, that all persons visiting the church of St. 
 Peter in that city on the first day of January, should obtain an ex- 
 traordinary indulgence. Moved by this report, multitudes flocked to 
 the church towards evening, filling it to overflowing, so that it was 
 nearly impossible to press through the crowd to the altar. This move- 
 ment on the part of the people was regarded as something divine ; or, 
 if it took place naturally, still inasmuch as it had occurred, it was de- 
 termined to make the best of it. The stories of a man over a hundred 
 years old, who related what had been done at the beginning of the pre- 
 ceding century, added to the impression. Thereupon the pope put forth 
 a bull, granting the fullest indulgence to all Romans who for thirty 
 days, and to all strangers who for fifteen days, in this year, reckoning 
 from the Easter festival, should devoutly visit the churches of St. 
 Peter and of St. Paul in Rome ; on the condition, however, carefully 
 specified, that they truly repented and confessed their sins.^ The ex- 
 pression used in the bull was, '" the fullest forgiveness of sins," a 
 promise which, thus vaguely expressed, was directly calculated to in- 
 spire many with a greater feeling of security in sin, as well as to 
 encourage the abuse of indulgences. Attracted by this bull, vast 
 multitudes of men and women, of all ages, from districts far and near, 
 flocked together in Rome. In addition to the rest, the exhibition of 
 the pretenuyd haiidlvefchief of St. Veronica was employed as a pow^- 
 erful means of excitement. Two hundred thousand pilgrims a day 
 are said to have assembled together in Rome — a source of great 
 gain to the church, as well as of wealth to the Romans. 
 
 The unspiritual temper of this pope showed itself in the implacable 
 hatred with which he persecuted his enemies. Thus he could not fail 
 to place himself in the most unfavorable light to his contemporaries ; 
 while by other acts into which he allowed his passions to hurry him, 
 he contributed to provoke the storms by which his reign was disturb- 
 ed. When a cardinal, he was zealously devoted to the Ghibelline 
 party ; but no sooner had he become pope, than he turned into a 
 fierce partisan ot the Guelphs : and the wrath which he harbored 
 against the former party exceeded all bounds. The following instance 
 may be cited in illustration of his passionate spirit, which could pro- 
 
 ' The words of the bull ; Non solum rum concediraus veniam peccatorum. 
 pleuam et largiorem, imo pleaissiiuaui suo- 
 
4 BONIFACE VIII. AND THE COLONNAS. 
 
 fanely dreak forth on the most sacred occasions. We are told that 
 on one occasion when sprinkHng ashes, according to the usage on Ash- 
 Wedncsdaj, over the head of an archbishop of Genoa, belon^jcing 
 to the Ghibellines, instead of recitino; the words of the Psahii : " Me 
 mento quia cinis es et in cinerem reverteris," he travestied them, and 
 said : " Quia Ghibelhnus es, cum Ghibellinis in cinerem reverteris." 
 Of a pope who could descend to such trifling, it is not difficult to 
 account for the report which got abroad, and which was afterwards 
 used against him, tliat his professions of reverence for the things of 
 faith were whollv Avitliout sinceritv. 
 
 At the head of his enemies stood the widely-branched and powerful 
 family of the Colonnas, to which two cardinals belonged. These had 
 opposed Boniface's election, and he therefore hated them. He gladly 
 seized upon an opportunity that soon offered itself, to strike a blow at 
 the whole family. A knight connected with it had attacked and 
 plundered a convoy of the papal treasure on its Avay to Rome. He 
 took this occasion to put forth, in the year 1297, against the entire 
 family, a terrible bull, recounting all their sins, from distant genera- 
 tions to the present, deposing them from all their spiritual and secular 
 offices, and pronouncing them under the ban. Their castles in Rome 
 "were demolished ; their estates confiscated. This step was attended 
 "VN'ith very important consequences. The two cardinals of the family, 
 who did not recognize the validity of the act by which they were 
 deposed, published a protest ^ against Boniface and his proceedings. 
 In this they endeavored to prove that he was not to be considered as 
 the lawful pope ; for the pope, being a vicar of Christ, could not be 
 deprived of his office by any one but God. Celestin was still, there- 
 fore, the only lawful pope, whose place could not rightly be filled by 
 the substitution of another individual. But even supposing an abdica- 
 tion of this sort, made by a pope, were ever valid ; it was not so 
 in the case of Celestin, because it had been brouglit about by cunning 
 and fraudulent management on the part of Boniface. ^ ^They appealed 
 to a general council, to be convened for the purpose of setthng this 
 dispute, which so nearly concerned the well-being of the whole church. 
 Thus we see, first called forth by the wicked acts of this pope, an 
 appeal to the higher tribunal of a general council, assembled to pass 
 judgment on the pope ; — an appeal, which, for the present indeed, 
 met with no res[)onse, — but is still worthy of notice, as the first 
 impulse towards calling into action a power in the church, which 
 afterwards obtained an ascendency so great, and so dangerous to 
 papal absolutism. At this time, the regularity of Boniface's election 
 ■was defended against the objections of tlie Colonnas by other persons 
 in the service of the Roman court. Controversy ^Yith the pen was 
 followed up by a bloody contest between the two parties. The pope 
 
 ' Printed in tlic Appendix to Rajiial- mcnta ct talcs ct talia intcrvcnisse multi- 
 
 di AnniUt's, year 1297, No. 34. plieitor asscruntur, quod csto, (juod posset 
 
 * The noiieeable words arc: quod in fieri rcnuntiatio, de (juo nicrito dubitatur, 
 
 renuiitiationc ipsius multaefraudes et doli, ii)sam vitiarent et reddercut illcijitiiuam, 
 
 couditiunes ct iatcndiiiieuta ct inachiua- iiieiiicacem ct nuUam. 
 
PAPACY AXD CnURCn CONSTITUTION. 5 
 
 used his spiritual power to gratify his personal animosities. lie pro- 
 claimed a crusade against the Colonnas ; and to take part in a war of 
 revenge was made a condition of the pardon of sins. The Colonnas 
 were compelled to yield to superior force. In the year 1298, they 
 threw themselves at the pope's feet. He promised them forgiveness, 
 and bestowed upon them absolution. But they found afterwards that 
 they had been deceived by him. They again rebelled ; and the pope 
 renewed his sentence of excommunication. To secure safety to their 
 persons, they fled from Italy. Several of their number betook them- 
 selves to France, where the pride of the pope soon gave them ample 
 opportunity for revenge. 
 
 In King Philip the Fair of France, the pope found an antagonist 
 quite his equal in avarice and ambition, and in that unflinching policy 
 which never blushed at a crime, though in pursuit of opposite inter- 
 ests. When this king demanded that the spiritual order should in 
 common with all other classes, contribute money towards defraying 
 the expenses of his wars, Boniface, who looked upon this as an en- 
 croachment on the liberties of the church, was induced, in the year 
 1296, to put forth a bull, known from its commencing words by the 
 title, '^ Clericis laicos," and aimed against King Phihp, though his 
 name is not mentioned. In this bull, all princes and nobles were 
 pronounced under ban, who demanded tribute, under any form, from 
 the church and the clergy ; and all who paid such tribute were in- 
 volved in the same condemnation and penalty. Against this bull the 
 king put forth a declaration, remarkable as containing the evidence of 
 a more liberal spirit, in opposition to the Medieval Theocracy, a spirit 
 which had never, indeed, ceased to propagate itself in opposition to 
 papal absolutism, and which was constantly emerging to the light when- 
 ever a favorable occasion presented itself; but the language we now 
 hear employed partakes of a bold freedom, such as had not been heard 
 for a long time. The church, it was said, does not consist of the clergy 
 alone, but also of laymen. The liberty which Christ achieved for the 
 fiiithful, freedom from the dominion of sin and of Satan, and from the 
 yoke of the law, belongs not to the clergy alone, but also to the laity. 
 Has Christ died and risen again solely for the clergy ? God forbid. 
 Is there such respect for persons with God, as that the clergy alone 
 are to obtain grace in this life and glory in the life to come ? No. 
 To all alike who by faith and love bring forth the fruits of goodness 
 has he promised the reward of eternal felicity ; and the clergy, there- 
 fore, have no title to appropriate exclusively to themselves the ecclesi- 
 astical freedom that belongs to all, understanding thereby the freedom 
 obtained for us by the grace of Christ. But from this universal free- 
 dom, are to be distinguished the special liberties Avhich by the ordi- 
 nances of the popes, the favor, or at least the sufl'erance of princes, 
 have been bestowed on the ministers of public worship. Yet, by 
 these liberties, kings ought not to be hindered in the government and 
 defence of their realms ; even as Christ said to the priests of the tem- 
 ple, that they should render to God the things that are God's, and to 
 Coesar the things that are Caesar's. Have not those persons rendered 
 
6 BONIFACE Ylir. AND PHILIP THE FAIR. 
 
 in a perverted sense to God, v>\\o have sought to alter and distort the 
 old and natural law according to their own caprice ? What reason- 
 able man must not be filled with astonishment at hearing that the 
 vicar of Christ forbids the emperor to institute tribute ; and with the 
 threat of excommunication fulminates an order, that the clergy should 
 not rally in support of the king, of the realm, nay, in defence of them- 
 selves against unjust attacks, according to their ability ? Next, 
 allusion is made to the worldly lives of the clergy ; and it is objected 
 to the pope, that he connived at this evil, while he prohibited ecclesi- 
 astics from fulfilling their duties to the civil powers. To squander 
 away money, it is said, on theatrical exhibitions and worldly pleasures 
 at the expense of the poor ; to make extravagant expenditures for 
 dress, for horses, for feasts and entertainments : all this is permitted 
 them, as an example for corrupt imitation. But it was alike con- 
 trary to nature and to reason, to divine law and to human, to be lavish 
 in granting that which is not permitted, and eager to hinder that 
 "which is not only permitted, but even necessary. The king avowed 
 his respect for the church and its ministers ; but at the same time 
 declared, that he did not fear the unreasonable and unrighteous threats 
 of men. 
 
 This first quarrel was, it is true, soon afterwards hushed up, when 
 the king accepted the mediation of the pope in settling his political 
 strifes. In no long time, however, it broke out again with an increase 
 of violence. Boniface complained of the manifold oppressions suffered 
 by the church in France ; and in the year 1301 set forth his griev- 
 ances through a legate, who had already on a previous occasion made 
 himself odious to the French government, and who by his character 
 and his principles which he avowed without reserve, was the very man 
 to bring about a rupture which could not be healed. This was the 
 bishop iSaiset de Pamicrs. He told the king, that although the seat of 
 his bishopric came under French jurisdiction, yet, as a bishop he was 
 not the king's subject, but amenable, in secular things as well as eccle- 
 siastical, to the pope. He threatened the king with the ban, and his 
 ■whole realm with the interdict. Unanswered and with contempt, the 
 bishop was sent out of the kingdom. Soon, however, he ventured to 
 appear again in his diocese. The consequence of his rebellious con- 
 duct was his arrest. It so happened, that the irascible pope, perhaps 
 in the first outburst of wrath, sent a letter to the king, composed with 
 dictatorial brevity, and commencing thus : " Thou art to know, that 
 in things spiritual and temporal, thou art subject to us."i He told him, 
 that the power of bestowing royal benefices depended solely on the 
 pope ; and he ended with these words : " Those who think otherwise, 
 "we hold to be heretics." This curt letter, instead of the usual apos- 
 tolic salutation, bore for a superscription : " Deum time et mandata 
 ejus observa." The style of this epistle might indeed suggest doubts 
 "with regard to its authenticity ; but then again how much con- 
 fidence is there to be placed in the passionate temper of a pope, Avho 
 
 * Scire te volumus, quod in spiritualibus et temporalibus nobis subes. 
 
PArACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 7 
 
 set no limits to his arbitrary 'svill, and was not always mindf\il of de- 
 cency. If it was attempted afterwards to deny the official character 
 of such a document, still it does not follow, tliat such a letter was 
 not actually sent by the pope. There seems to have been no doubt on 
 the subject in the very time of these events. ^ 
 
 To tliis letter the king returned as laconic an answer ; with the ad- 
 dress, " Philip, by the grace of God king of the French, to Boniface, 
 who claims to be the Pope ; little greeting, or rather none at all.2 " 
 The letter began thus : " Let thy most consummate folly know, that 
 in temporal things, we are subject to no ^Tzan."-^ What Boniface had 
 affirmed, was here as stoutly denied ; and then to the card which Bo- 
 niface had added, was thrown down another, quite its match. 
 " Those who think otherwise we hold to be foolish or mad."^ 
 
 Already were the boldest voices heard remonstrating against papal 
 usurpations. In an opinion written upon this letter of the pope, in 
 which it was designed to prove that the pope had, by making such as- 
 sertions, fallen into a heresy, the king's advocate, Peter de Bosco, ex- 
 pressed himself as follows : The popes before the gift of Constantine, 
 had lived in a condition of the greatest poverty. This gift was, at the 
 beginning, not legally binding ; and it might be revoked were it not for 
 the many years that have since elapsed. But the most righteous 
 punishment which a man can suffer is to ruin himself by his own ac- 
 tions ; as Christ intimated when he said to Peter — "They who take 
 the sword shall perish by the sword ; " and perhaps it would be of ad- 
 vantage to the popes to become as poor as they once were, that they 
 might be as holy. It would be better for them to enter the kingdom 
 of heaven with the poor, than by pride, luxury and rapine, to join 
 company with those, who show by the fruits of their daily living, that 
 they do not belong to the kingdom of heaven. If the pope be a ser- 
 vant of God, as he calls himself a servant of the servants of God, he 
 should shun the mortal sins, robbery, luxury and pride ; for Christ 
 came not to destroy the law but to fulfil.^ 
 
 The same day on which that shorter letter is said to have been des- 
 patched, on the 5th of December, 1801, the pope sent a very long 
 letter to the king.^ In this he set forth in detail all the complaints 
 against him and his government. He exhorts him to reform, threat- 
 ening him, if he does not, with the worst ; a step which he should take 
 only with the greatest reluctance. Next he informs the king, that he 
 
 ' The lan,2:uage employed in vindication Boniface VIII. et Philippe le Bel, roi de 
 
 of the pope to be found among the trans- France. Paris 1655, p. 75. 
 actions of the papal consistory in the year ^ Bonifacio se ixerenti pro summo pon- 
 
 1302, testifies in favor of the statement in tifice salutem modicam sen nuHam. 
 the text. The document, after distinguish- ^ Sciat Tua maxima fatuitas, in tempo- 
 
 ing this letter from the longer one hereaf- ralibus nos alicui non subesse. 
 ter to be mentioned, goes on to observe : * Secus autera credentes fatuos et de- 
 
 Dicitur quod una alia litera fuit missa mentes putamus. 
 
 Domino regi, nescio unde venerit ilia lit- ^ In the above cited collection, p. 46. 
 era, sed scio quod per fratres sacri collegii ^ Complete in the above cited collection 
 
 non fujt missa, et excuso Dominum of documents, p. 48 ; and with the omis- 
 
 nostrum, quia credo firmiter, quod illam sion of the passages expunged by order 
 
 literam non misit, nee al> eo emanavit. of Clement V, in Kaynaldi 1301, No. 28. 
 — Histoire du ditierend d'entre le pape 
 
8 BOXIFACE Yin. AND PHILIP THE FAIR. 
 
 intended to cite the most eminent men of the French church to Rome, 
 to appear there by the first of November of the following year, for the 
 purpose of advising with them as to the best method of removing the 
 grievances above referred to, and of improving the administration of 
 the realm. The king might either appear personally at Rome, or he 
 might send agents invested with full powers ; but at all events, he him- 
 self would not be induced, even should the king omit to do this, to 
 alter his own conduct on that account. '' But thou wilt observe " — 
 says he — " what the Lord our God speaks forth in us." 
 
 Thus the pope set himself up as judge not only in ecclesiastical 
 affairs, but also over the king's government ; for he would have him- 
 self rei!:arded, little as it suited with his character and his habits of 
 life, a sort of theocratic umpire over all the affairs of the world : and 
 so he says, following in this the example of other popes, that God had 
 set him above kings and kingdoms, to pull down and build up. He 
 ■warns the king against allowing himself to be persuaded by any one, 
 that he had no superiors, that he was not subject to the head of the 
 whole hierarchy ; for whoever thought so was a fool ; and Avhoever ob- 
 stinately maintained it, showed that he was an infidel. i 
 
 The validity of such a bull, the king could not, of course, acknow- 
 ledge without denying the sovereignty of his government, and making 
 himself wholly dependant on the hierarchy. The bull was publicly 
 burnt, and that it had been so disposed of, was everywhere announced 
 by public proclamation. 
 
 The disputed principles according to which Boniface here acted, 
 "were also theoretically expounded by him, in a bull, constituting an 
 epoch in church history, which from its commencing words is called 
 " Unam Sanctam;"and the papal absolutism therein asserted was 
 thus erected into a necessary article of faith. To be sure, this bull 
 contains nothing more ^ than the logically consequent development of the 
 principles on which the entire churchly theocratic system had rested 
 since the time of Gregory VII., that Christ had committed to Peter 
 two swords, — symbols of the spiritual, and of the secular authority. 
 Both swords were dependant therefore on the church. The one was 
 to be drawn hy the church, the other for the church ; the one by the 
 hand of the priest, the other by the hands of kings and soldiers, but 
 at the priests' behest. The secular power must needs, therefore, be 
 subject to the spiritual ; in correspondence to that law of divine order 
 in the world, by which the lower is connected with that which is high- 
 est through various intermediate gradations ; in proof of which the 
 pope appeals to Dionysius the Areopagite. Whenever, therefore, the 
 earthly power deviates from right, it must be corrected by the spiritual. 
 Whenever an inferior spiritual power violates its duty, it can be cor- 
 rected only hy ^superior ^ but the supreme authority can be correct- 
 ed only by God. To supply a ground for this position, the words of 
 Paul must be perverted ; " He that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet 
 he himself is judged of no man." The assertion that there are two 
 
 * In the above cited collection, p. 48. ' Vid Raynaldi 1302, No. 13. 
 
PAPACY AND CnURCn COXSTITUTION". 9 
 
 powers subsisting inrlepenflcntly of ench other, is declared to be Ma- 
 iiichiTcismJ That all men must obej the pope, is set forth as an article 
 of faith necessary to salvation. 2 
 
 This bull was considered in France an encroachment on the king'3 
 authority ; a contrivance to make that authority dependant on the pope. 
 The most emphatic protests Avere issued against it. The grievances 
 "vvhich the church had to suifer from the capricious exercise of papal 
 authority were thereby brought into discussion. In the letter which 
 the nobles of the realm and the bishops sent to the cardinals, com- 
 plaints were made of the pope's bad government of the church, of the 
 arbitrary methods of procedure in the distribution of benefices, where- 
 by the churches were prostrated. It was said that foreigners, that 
 boys, obtained the high offices of the church ; that as such persons 
 lived at a distance from the communities over which they were placed, 
 and could not administer the office in person, the church service fell 
 into neglect ; the wishes of those who had founded the churches, were 
 disregarded ; the prelates were hindered from bestowing the benefices 
 on well-informed clerorvmen of ";ood standin^.s The Cardinals endea- 
 vored to defend the pope against these complaints. Injustice enough, 
 there doubtless may have been on both sides ; and the two parties 
 may have had sufficient ground for mutual crimination. The pope 
 could appeal to the fact, that a bishop also had instated two bo_ys, his 
 nephews. He had never heard, he says, when vindicating himself 
 before the consistory of cardinals, that the king or a prelate had in- 
 stated, as it behooved them to do, a master in theology ; but he had 
 heard of their instating their nephews, or other unqualified persons. 
 
 From the reproach also of having encroached upon the royal author- 
 ity and its independent prerogatives, Rome endeavored to clear herself. 
 This conclusion could only have been arrived at, by a falsification or 
 false interpretation of the pope's letter. " For forty years," says 
 Boniface, " I have studied the law ; and well know. that two powers 
 are ordained of God. Who then ought to believe, or can believe me 
 guilty of such folly ? "^ And so too affirmed the cardinals. Never 
 had the pope written to the king, that the latter had received from 
 •him the secular power, and that therein the king was subject to the 
 pope.^ But how is this to be reconciled with the principles expressed 
 in the bull Unam Sanctam ? To understand this we need only to see 
 clearly into certain distinctions of the papal law. It was very true 
 that the spiritual and secular powers should subsist, each distinct and 
 separate from the other ; and yet, from the moral oversight of the 
 pope nothing should be withdrawn; to his moral tribunal every thing 
 
 ^ Nisi duo sicut Manichaeusfingat prin- ' See the letter of the harons in tlie 
 
 cipia, quod fulsura et haereticum esse ju- above cited Collection, p. 61 ; the letter of 
 
 dicamus; and against this Dualism, the the Freuch church assembly to the pope, 
 
 beautiful reason that Moses did not say p 69. 
 
 In principiis, but In principiocoelumDeus "* Quis ergo debet credere vel potest, 
 
 ereavit et tcrram. quod tanta fatuitas tantainsipieutia sit vel 
 
 ^ Porro sul)esse Komano pontifici oranihu- fuerit in capite nostro ? 
 manai creaturse declaramus, dicimus et dif- ^ In the above cited Collection, p. 63. 
 finimus omnino esse de necessitate salutis. 
 
10 BONIFACE VIII. AND PHILIP THE FAIR. 
 
 inust be amcnaMe. And tliiis, Avliat was conceded to the secular 
 power with one hand is taken back by the other. By virtue of his 
 moral tribunal the pope could still make every other power, which he 
 acknowledged to be, in a certain respect, an independent one, depend- 
 ant on himself. Thus, while he acknowledged this sort of relative in- 
 dependence, he might at the same time declare, that the king could 
 no more than any other believer, deny, that he was still subject to the 
 pope in respect of sins.' And accordingly, in that very consistory 
 which was held hv the purpose of vindicating the pope, the cardinal- 
 bishop of Porto affirmed, '' There is a ruler, a chief at the head of 
 the church, whose commands all must obey." This ruler was lord 
 over all, spiritual things and secular. It was a thing not to be doubted 
 by any man, that in reference to sins, the pope had judicial authority 
 over all things temporal. As God had created two luminaries, one to 
 rule the day, the other the night, so had he conferred on the pope 
 spiritual jurisdiction in the highest sense ; on the emperor and princes, 
 jurisdiction in temporal things ; which is always to be understood 
 however, in its connection with the distinction above alluded to ; the 
 distinction between ri(^ht and practice^ as it is here called. It is as- 
 serted, that as certainly as Christ is to be judge over quick and dead, 
 just so certainly this prerogative must also belong to his vicar, the 
 pope. This was a part of the idea of the community of saints. Al- 
 though the secular power, therefore, is not the pope's, as to practice, 
 for Christ commanded Peter to return his sword into its sheath, still it 
 should remain dependant on him, as to right.'^ According to these 
 principles Boniface acted, when he told the king, that if he did not 
 reform, if he refused to let his prelates come to Rome, the pope would 
 depose him, as his predecessors had already deposed three French 
 kings. His arrogant language was, " The king who has done 
 wickedness we will depose as if he was a boy." 3 What means the 
 pope resorted to for extending his dominion over all, we may gather 
 from a boast of his, that he knew all the secrets of the French king- 
 dom. 
 
 It is true, the king had straitly charged the French prelates not to 
 leave the kingdom. The goods of those who obeyed the pope's cita- 
 tion were sequestrated ; still Boniface required it of them that they 
 should not be hindered by any fear of man from doing their duty. 
 And on the 13th of April, 1803, he issued a bull, pronouncing the 
 king under ban, because he had hindered the prelates from coming to 
 the council at Rome, and oppressed in various ways those who did at- 
 tend it, on their return home. When it had come to this, the king in 
 the same year convoked an assembly of the estates, for the pur])ose 
 of consultinii: with them as to what was to be done to counteract the 
 plots of the pope, and secure against them the safety of the realm. 
 On this occasion charges were brought against the [)ope in order to 
 furnish ground for a protest against the legality of his government. 
 
 * Non potest ncgare rex, sen quicunque ' See p. 76. 
 alter fidelis, quin sit nobis suljjcctus ra- ^ Nos doponeremus regcm sicuti unuru 
 tionc peccati. garcionem. 
 
BONIFACE VIII. AND PHILLIP THE FAIR. 11 
 
 These charges did not relate to simony alone, and to profane and 
 worldly pursuits, but also to unnatural licentiousness, and to the gross- 
 est infidelity. It was said, for example, that Boniface denied the im- 
 mortality of the soul, and often, before those with whom he was inti- 
 mate, uttered such language as this : " You fools sillily believe a 
 foolish thing ! Who ever came back from the other world, to tell us 
 anything about it ? Happy they who know how to enjoy life ; and j)it- 
 iable creatures are those who lose the present life in hopes of gaining a 
 future one, like the dog that stands over a pool of water with a bit of 
 meat in his mouth, and seeing the reflected image of it, lets go the 
 substance to chase after the shadow."^ He would often quote, it was 
 said, the words of Solomon, " All is vanity ! All will ever continue 
 to be as it has been." If we could credit these accusations, we 
 should have to set down Boniface as the most abominable of hypo- 
 crites ; one who believing nothing, used spiritual things merely as a 
 means to promote his selfish ends ; a man without any religion what- 
 ever, who, finding papal absolutism ready prepared for his purpose, 
 wielded it for the gratification of his unhallowed passions ; and hence 
 was never restrained by any religious or moral scruples from abusing 
 that power. It would be a remarkable sign of the times, if it were 
 possible to find in his case an infidelity expressed with so much con- 
 sciousness, — an infidelity nsing superstition merely as a means and a 
 pretext. As to what is said against the moral character of this pope, 
 we certainly have no reason to question the truth of the testimony on 
 that point ; and in a man of so reckless a spirit, in a man so ready to 
 use spiritual weapons to secure his own ends, the transition, it must be 
 allowed, was a very easy one from superstition to absolute infidelity. 
 But the accusations against the pope in relation to the matter of re- 
 ligion, proceeding from his most violent enemies, are not sustained by 
 sufficient evidence. From the contradiction, Avhich was so apparent 
 between the life and conduct of Boniface and his spiritual vocation 
 and religious professions, men might easily be led to conclude that the 
 pope did not himself put faith in anything he said and did with a 
 view to promote his own designs. Still, however, it is a remarkable 
 sign, that such rumors should get into circulation respecting the reli- 
 gious opinion of a pope, however incredible many of the things may 
 seem to be, of which this pope is accused. With regard to his moral 
 character, the voice of his times is one and the same ; not so with re- 
 gard to the matter of religion. Even those who speak most unfavor- 
 ably of Boniface take no part in accusing him on this point. The fa- 
 mous poet Dante, who certainly stood far enough removed from the 
 papal party, also portrays Boniface as an altogether worldly min.led 
 man, one who profaned holy things. Yet he does not place him 
 among the unbelievers, the deniers of immortality, in hell ; as he does 
 Frederic II., towards whom he must in other respects have been 
 more favorably inclined, by virtue of his party interest, as a Ghibelline. 
 This surely may be regarded as of some weight in e^stimating the 
 credibility of those charges against the religious views of Boniface. 
 
 ^ See p. 328. 
 
12 PAPACY AXD CHURCH COXSTITUTIO}^". 
 
 These cliar<:^es having been formally set forth, it Avas now proposed 
 that appeal should be made to a general council, before which they 
 could be duly investigated. The proposition was adopted. The 
 assembly appealed to a general council, and to a future lawful pope. 
 Many syti ritual and secular bodies united in this appeal, with the pro- 
 viso that the pope should be allowed an opportunity of defending him- 
 self against such charges. Thus, for the second time, we are presented 
 with the case of an appeal to a general council for the purpose of 
 passing judgment on a pope. 
 
 The pope, of course, pronounced all these transactions disorderly, 
 and unlawful. In opposition to these resolutions and appeals he put 
 forth a bull, on the loth of August, 180B. In this, he did not enter 
 minutely into any refutation of the charges brought against his re- 
 ligious views, but simply says: "Where before had it ever been heard, 
 that he was infected with heresies ? Of what individual of his whole 
 fiimily, or of his province of Campania, could this be said ? Whence 
 then this so sudden change, that he who, but a short time ago, had been 
 regarded by the king as lawful pope, should at once be accused as a 
 heretic ? No other reason could be assigned but this, that the pope 
 had considered it his duty to call the king to account for wrongs he 
 had done. A precedent then, was now to be given, that whenever the 
 successor of Peter should propose to correct a prince or powerful noble, 
 he might be accused as a heretic, or a transgressor ; and so reforma- 
 tion would be eluded, and the highest authority completely prostrated. 
 " Far be it from me," he said, '' without whom no council can be con- 
 voked, to permit any such precedent to be given." The pope pro- 
 nounces every appeal from him to be null and void. He affirms that 
 none superior or equal to him exists among mortals, to whom an appeal 
 could be made; that without him, no council could be convoked ; and 
 he reserves it to himself to choose the fit time and place for proceed- 
 ing against the king and his adherents and punishing such guilty ex- 
 cesses, unless they should previously reform, and give due satisfaction, 
 — " so that their blood," says the pope, " may not be required at our 
 hands." 
 
 The pope, with his cardinals, had retired to his native city Anagni ; 
 and already, on the 8th of September, 180-3, had drawn up a new 
 bull of excommunication against Philip, discharging all his subjects 
 from their oath of alk'giance and forbidding them any longer to obey 
 him, when, before he could deal the blow, he fell himself a victim to 
 the vengeance of his fiercest enemy. William of Nogaret, the French 
 keeper of the seals, having been commissioned by the king to announce 
 those resolutions to the cardinals and the pope, and to see them 
 carried into execution, pushed forward, at the head of a troop of 
 armed men, got together with the assistance of several of the ban- 
 ished Colonnas, and entered at early dawn into Anagni. The cry was 
 raised, " Death to Pope Boniface ! long live the king of France ! " 
 The people took sides with the soldiers. The cardinals fled. The 
 pope, forsaken by all, was surrendered as a victim into the hands of 
 his enemies. He showed himself to be firm and courageous in misfor- 
 
AEGIDIUS OF ROME. 13 
 
 tune ; and we see plainly how much he might have accomplished, had 
 his bold, energetic will been inspired by a single spark of religious or 
 moral feehng. " Since," said he, " I am a prisoner by betrayal, like 
 Christ, it becomes me to die, at least like a pope." On the papal 
 throne, clad with all the papal insignia, he awaited his enemies. 
 Nogaret took possession of the pope's person, and of his whole retinue. 
 He descended to low abuse, and indulged himself in scandalous jokes 
 on his prisoner. Boniface, who thought he had good cause to look out 
 for poison, found himself reduced to the most deplorable condition. 
 But three days had scarcely elapsed before a change took place in the 
 fickle populace. They were seized with pity towards the forsaken 
 Boniface, and indignation against those who had reduced him to 
 this state. The multitude ran together, shouting, " Long live Boni- 
 face ! death to his betrayers ! " Thus the French were driven from 
 the city, and Bonifixce, set at liberty, was enabled to return to Rome. 
 But he did not escape the fate which he had drawn down on his own 
 head. Mortified ambition and pride, as it would seem, threw htm into 
 a mental distemper, which terminated in insanity. He never got up 
 from it, and died in this state on the 12th of October, 1303. On this 
 unhappy end of Boniface, the Florentine historian, Yillani,! judging 
 according to the prevailing opinion of his age, makes the following com- 
 ment : '' We ought not to be surprised at the judgments of God in 
 first punishing, after this manner. Pope Boniface, a man more worldly 
 than became his station, and one who did much that was displeasing to 
 God, — and then punishing him also who was employed as the instru- 
 ment of the pope's punishment; not so much on account of his treat- 
 ment of Boniface personally, as on account of his trespass against the 
 Divine Majesty, of which the pope is the representative on earth." 
 
 This issue, in which a defence so conducted of papal absolutism 
 pushed to the farthest extreme, resulted, was important not only in it- 
 self, but also on account of the grave consequences to which it imme- 
 diately led ; the contest between the papal-court system of the Middle 
 Ages and a more liberal tendency which gathered strength and bold- 
 ness every day. As the first representatives of the latter appear, 
 amidst these controversies, two distin;2;uished writers, — the Auiiustiniau 
 Aegidim of Rome, afterwards archbishop of Bourges, and the 
 Parisian Theologian John of Paris, a Dominican, of whom we 
 have already spoken in the section relating to the doctrine of the 
 Lord's Supper, in the preceding period. The former composed, in 
 the usual scholastic form, a controversial tract, in opposition to the 
 pope's absolute authority, as asserted by Boniface in the above-men- 
 tioned shorter bull, — another evidence of the authenticity of that 
 bull which ought not to be overlooked.^ 
 
 From the fact, that the pope was the vicar of Christ it had been 
 attempted to prove his universal authority ; but in this tract the idea 
 of such a vicarship was used for a directly contrary purpose. We 
 
 ' Lib. 8. 63. In Goldasti raonarchia sacri imperii, tom- 
 
 * Quaestio disputata in utramque par- II. 
 tem pro et contra potifieiam potestatem. 
 VOL. V. 2 
 
14 PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 here see the Ava}- already preparinf^ for a tenrlency, Tvhich from this 
 time forward appeared under various forms, and preceded the Refor- 
 mation, — the tendency -wliich aimed to set forth prominently the con- 
 trast between the pope as he was, and that which he ou;:ht to be as 
 vicar of Christ. Althou;^h, — it is said, — Christ might have been Lord 
 over all, yet he did not use this power. In fact, he declined the royal 
 authority whenever it was offered to him, John vi. When the multi- 
 tude would have made him king, he escaped from their hands, thereby 
 teacliing his followers to shun an insatiable covetousness, and restless 
 ambition. Thus he spiritually gave example to his representatives on 
 earth, that they should not covet imperial or royal honors, still less 
 take upon themselves any such dignity. It was also to be reckoned 
 as a part of the same lesson, that he refused to interfere in settling 
 disputes about inheritance, Luke xii. " The Son of God ever disdained 
 actiu'T^ as a judge over temporal possessions, though ordained of God 
 to be the judge of quick and dead." Neither should his representa- 
 tives, .therefore, intermeddle -with matters of temporal jurisdiction. 
 Christ permitted neither Peter nor the other apostles to exercise secu- 
 lar dominion ; on the contrary, he constantly enjoined on them hu- 
 mility, and instead of secular power, recommended to them great 
 poverty. They were to have neither gold nor silver. Aegidius ap- 
 peals to the words of Peter in the Acts, " Silver and gold have I 
 none." The apostles were to be spiritually minded ; to withdraw 
 themselves from earthly things, as far as human frailty permitted ; to 
 be absorbed in things spiritual and eternal ; to watch over the welfare 
 of souls. For Christ knew that temporal things ruffle the temper, 
 distract the spirit, and sink it wholly in the world. 
 
 As to the question regarding the relation of the two powers to each 
 other, Aegidius distinguishes the diiferent classes of affairs. In mat- 
 ters purely spiritual, such as questions of matrimony, the secular 
 power was undoubtedly subordinate to the spiritual. But with matters 
 purely secular, such as feudal and criminal causes, the case stood 
 otherwise. These things God had committed especially and directly to 
 secular rulers ; and with such, neither the popes nor any other prelates 
 of the most ancient church had ever intermeddled. 
 
 The defenders of papal absolutism maintained, that the church, 
 beinf one body, can have but one head ; that a body with two heads 
 would be a monster. To this he replied: Properly speaking, the 
 church has assuredly but one head, which is Christ ; and from him are 
 derived the two powers, spiritual and temporal ; yet, in a certain re- 
 spect, the pope may be called head of the church, inasmuch as he is 
 the first among the servants of the church — the one on whom the 
 whole spiritual order depends. This conception of the papal power, 
 as referring solely to that which is necessary or profitable to salvation, 
 to ends purely spiritual, is ever kept distinctly in view by this writer. 
 
 The sophistical defenders of papal absolutism were disposed to find 
 in the comprehension of all things in one unity under the pope as head 
 over all, a restoration of tliat original state, in which Adam was the 
 universal head. To this Aegidius answered : that the comparison did 
 
JOHN OF PARIS. 15 
 
 not apply ; for in man's original condition, there could not have been 
 states ; and then again, all must have been spirituallj-mindcd. There 
 may have been, indeed, a certain rule of subordination, as there are 
 different grades among the angels ; jet no such relation of rulers and 
 subjects, as belongs to the idea of a state. 
 
 it had been a governing principle ever since the time of Gregory 
 VII., that the pope could absolve subjects from their oath of alle- 
 giance ; and from this it Avas inferred that his authority must extend 
 also to temporal things. But Aegidius would concede the principle 
 thus assumed, only under certain limitations. " The pope," says he, 
 " can absolve subjects from their oath of allegiance, or rather declare 
 that they are so absolved." By this latter clause, he doubtless meant 
 to have "it understood, that the pope cannot here express an arbitrary 
 judgment, but only testify to a fact, or state that it had its real ground 
 in the very nature of law itself. But this could be done only in those 
 cases in w'hich he was warranted also to take steps against a ruler ; as 
 in cases of heresy, of schism, or of obstinate rebellion against the 
 Roman church. 
 
 The " plenitude of power " ascribed to the pope, a prerogative 
 "Tfhich the popes so often appealed to, as one which enabled them to 
 carry through all their measures, Aegidius would allow to be valid only 
 under certain limitations. It was valid only in reference to the souls 
 of men ; only in reference to the binding and loosing, and only on the 
 presupposition that the pope's decision was not an erroneous one. He 
 could not bestow renewing grace on souls ; he could neither save nor 
 condemn them ; he could not forgive sins, except so far as he was the 
 instrument of a higher power. Even in spiritual things, no such un- 
 conditional fulness of power was to be attributed to him ; but only a 
 fulness of power as compared with that of subordinate church author- 
 ities. It was an argument, indeed, often used, that as the spiritual is 
 so far exalted above the temporal, therefore he who has supreme pow- 
 er over the spiritual, must a fortiori exercise that powei* over the 
 temporal. Aegidius exposes the sophistry of this argument, by re- 
 marking that this mode of reasoning a mitwri ad majiis was valid only 
 as applied to matters the same in kind, and not to those differing in 
 kind ; else we might argue that he who can beget a man, can much 
 more beget a fly: he who is a curer of souls, can much more cure the 
 body. 
 
 Moreover, to the historical facts, Avhich the defenders of an unlim- 
 ited papacy construed so as to accord with their own interests, this 
 writer assigned their legitimate place ; as, for example, to the depos- 
 ition of Childeric III. by Pope Zacharias. " It is nowhere read," ♦ 
 says Aegidius, " that the pope deposed him, but only that he advised 
 to'that step. It was by the estates of the realm that Childeric was 
 deposed, and Pipin proclaimed in his place ; but they could have done 
 the same thing without the pope's advice." 
 
 The second of the above mentioned individuals, John of Paris, in 
 his treatise of Royal and Papal authority,^ speaks of two errors, which 
 
 ' De potestate regia et papali, in the above cited Collection of Goldast. torn. II. 
 
16 PAPACY AXD CnURCn CONSTITUTION. 
 
 he represents as running into opposite extremes ; the opinion of the 
 Waldenses, that the pope and preLates ought not to ©xercise secular 
 dominion of any kind ; and the opinion of those who considered Christ's 
 kingdom an earthly one. Of tliese latter, he points to Herod I. 
 as the representative ; for when he heard that Messiah the King was 
 born, he could conceive of nothing but an earthly king. " Just so," 
 he says, ^^ in modern times, many in trj'ing to avoid the error of tho 
 Waldenses, fall into the opposite extreme of considering the pope to 
 be vicar of Christ, as having dominion over the earthly goods of 
 princes, and of ascribing to him such a jurisdiction." This doctrine, 
 he thinks, would lead to the error of Yigilantius ; for it would follow 
 from it, that renunciation of earthly power and earthly rule contra- 
 dicted the vocation of the pope as vicar of Christ : whence, again, it 
 •would follow, that such renunciation was no part of evangelical perfec- 
 tion. This opinion seems to him to savor somewhat of the pride of 
 the Pharisees, who taught that if the people paid tythes and offerings 
 to God, they were under no obligation to pay tribute to Cuesar. He 
 describes it as dangerous, because it removes the right of property 
 which they previously possessed from such as are converted to Chris- 
 tianity, and transfers it to the pope. It would reflect discredit on the 
 Christian faith, which would thus seem to stand in conflict with social 
 order ; and it was to be feared that when traffic thus found entrance 
 into the house of God, Christ would lay hold of the scourge to purify 
 the temple. The truth, however, was represented as lying in the 
 middle between these two errors. It was this, that secular rule and 
 worldly possessions were in no wise inconsistent w^ith the calling of the 
 pope or the prelates ; but still they were in no respect necessarily im- 
 plied in that vocation ; but were only permissible, and might be used, 
 when bestowed either by the devotion of Christians or from any other 
 quarter. 
 
 In separating the two powers, the author makes use of that distinc- 
 tion between the natural and supernatural destination of man, of which 
 we spoke in giving the history of scholastic theology in the preceding 
 period. ^ Answering to the one, is the realization of the end which the 
 {State proposes, by means of the natural virtues ; for this object civil 
 government is instituted. Answering to the other, is the destination 
 to life eternal ; and for this the spiritual power has been established. 
 Both powers are derived immediately from the supreme, divine power. 
 And he, like Aegidius, refutes the argument, that because one is a 
 superior, the other an inferior province, the latter must therefore be 
 subject to the former. The priest, in spiritual things, was greater than 
 • the prince ; but in temporal things, the prince was greater than the 
 priest ; though absolutely considered, the priest was the greater of the 
 two. It is maintained that the pope has no power of control even over 
 the goods of the church. These were bestowed by certain individ- 
 uals, who gave them to the church in behalf of the ecclesiastical com- 
 monwealth, for the furtherance of its ends ; to this commonwealth alone 
 
 » Vgl. Bd. X. s. 953 ff. 
 
JOHN OF PARIS. 17 
 
 they belonged. The administration of this trust devolved solely on the 
 prelates, and the pope had the general direction of this administration. 
 Hence he concludes that the pope could in no wise dispose of the goods 
 of the church at will, so that whatever he should ordain about them must 
 be obligatory ; but the power conferred on him related simply to the 
 •wants or to the advantage of the universal church. As a monastery 
 could deprive its abbot, a particular church its bishop, if it was proved 
 that the former squandered the goods of the monastery, the latter the 
 property of the church, so too the pope, if found guilty of any such 
 unfaithful administration, and if after being admonished, he did not 
 reform, might be deposed : whereupon he adds, " But, according to the 
 opinion of others, this could only be done, perhaps, by a general coun- 
 cil." John of Paris cites a doctrine held forth by the advocates of 
 papal absolutism, that, even though one rightfully opposed the arbitrary 
 will of the pope in the administration of church property, still the lat- 
 ter might remove him from his office. He says, on the other hand, 
 '' They Uft their mouths against heaven, and do foul wrong to the pope, 
 who thus make his will a disorderly, arbitrary will, when it is to be 
 presumed that the will of so great a father can never be so in conflict 
 with justice, as that he should, without good and sufficient reasons, 
 take away his own from any one ; for God never takes from any one 
 that which he has given him, except for his own fault. As the govern- 
 ment of Christ is not a worldly one, so he maintained the vicarship of 
 the pope could not relate to the things of the world. Christ rules in 
 the faithful, only through that which is highest in them, through the 
 spirit which has submitted to the obedience of faith. His kingdom is 
 a spiritual one, having its foundation in the hearts of men, not in their 
 possessions. 
 
 We have seen, that by the advocates of papal absolutism, a distinc- 
 tion was made between the secular power in itself, and in its exercise ; 
 so that the former was held to proceed immediately from the pope, but 
 the latter to depend wholly upon the sovereigns, to have been conferred 
 by God on them alone. This distinction John of Paris declares to be 
 absurd and inconsistent. It would follow from it, says he, that the 
 princes were also called upon to judge how the pope exercised his 
 power, and that they might deprive him of it ; which, however, is de- 
 nied by these men when they assert that the pope can be judged by 
 no man. And how is the pope to receive from princes what does not 
 belong to him by the ordinance of God ? and how is he to give them 
 what he himself receives from them ? The princes, according to this 
 doctrine, would be servants of the pope, as the pope is the servant of 
 God, which contradicts what is said in Rom. xiii, about magistrates 
 being ordained of God. Moreover, the power of rulers was, as a 
 matter of fact, both in itself and in its exercise, prior in time to the 
 power of the pope. 
 
 He also stood up in defence of the independent power of the bish- 
 ops and priests, and denied that this was derived from God only 
 through the mediation of the pope, maintaining, that it springs directly 
 from God, through the choice or concurrence of the communities. For 
 
 2* 
 
18 PAPACY AND CnURCn CONSTITUTION. 
 
 it was not Peter, whose successsor is the pope, that sent forth the 
 other apostles, whose successors are the bishops ; or who sent forth the 
 seventy disciples, whose successors are the parish priests ; but Christ 
 himself did this directly. It was not Peter who detained the apostles 
 in order to impart to them the Holy Ghost ; it was not he who gave 
 them power to forgive sins ; but Christ. Nor did Paul say, that he 
 received from Peter his apostolical office ; but he said that it came to 
 him directlv from Christ or from God ; that three vears had 
 elapsed after he received his commission to preach the gospel, before 
 he had an interview with Peter. 
 
 He maintains again, that ecclesiastical jurisdiction has reference 
 solely to things spiritual. The most extreme penalty which the pope 
 could threaten was excommunication ; all else was but a consequence 
 accidentally connected with that penalty. Thus he could only ope- 
 rate indirectly, so that the person on whom he pronounced sentence 
 of excommunication for some offence coming under his jurisdiction, 
 might be deposed, in case he threatened to put under ban all who 
 should obey him as sovereign, and thus brought about his removal by 
 means of the people. But similar to this, was the relation of rulers 
 also to the pope, considered with reference to the particular provinces 
 of their power. If the pope gave scandal to the church, and showed 
 himself incorrigible, it was in the power of secular rulers to bring 
 about his abdication or his deposition by means of their influence on 
 him or on his cardinals. And if the pope would not yield, the empe- 
 ror might so manage as to compel him to yield. He might command 
 the people, under severe penalties, to refuse obedience to him as pope. 
 Thus both pope and emperor could proceed one against the other ; for 
 both had a general jurisdiction, the emperor in temporal, the pope in 
 spiritual things. At the same time he expressly declares, that all he 
 had said respecting this power of the pope over princes could relate 
 only to such things as came under spiritual jurisdiction ; such as mat- 
 ters relating to the marriage-covenant, and matters of fiiith. But when 
 a king violated his obligations, as a ruler, it was not in the pope's 
 power to correct this evil directly. All that he could do was to apply 
 to the estates of the realm ; but if these could not or dared not correct 
 their sovereign, they were authorized to invoke the assistance of the 
 church. So on the other hand, if the pope transgressed in temporal 
 things, the investigation of which belonged to the civil jurisdiction, the 
 emperor had a right first to correct him by admonition, and then to 
 punish him, by virtue of his authority as a minister of God to execute 
 wrath on evil-doers. Ilom. xiii. But if the pope did wrong in spirit- 
 ual things, if he committed simony, encroached on the rights of the 
 church, taught false doctrines, he ought first to be set right by the car- 
 dinals, standing, as they did, at the head of the clerus. But if he 
 proved incorrigible, and they had not the power to rid the church of 
 the scandal, they were bound to invoke the assistance of the secular 
 arm, and the emperor might employ against the pope the powers which 
 God had put into his hands. He refers, for an example, to the deposi- 
 tion of Pope John XII. by the emperor Otho I. When the de- 
 
JOHN OF PARIS. — BENEDICT XI. 19 
 
 fenders of papal absolutism took the passage in the first epistle to tlio 
 Corinthians, and perverted it to their purpose, " He that is spiritual 
 judgeth all things, but he himself is judged of no man," he replied : 
 " The passage has no such application, for the apostle is only speaking 
 of persons spiritually minded ; but the possessor of the spiritual power 
 is not always such a person. Furthermore, he asserts that the unity of 
 the church, as one spiritual body, is not founded on Peter or on Linus, 
 but on Christ, who alone is in the proper and highest sense the head 
 of the church : from whom are derived the two powers, in a certain 
 series of gradations ; yet the pope might, in reference to the outward 
 service of the church, be called head of the church ; inasmuch as he 
 is the first among her servants, the one on whom, as the first vicar of 
 Christ in spiritual things, the whole regular series of church ministers 
 depends. He disputes the binding force of the pretended gift of Con- 
 stantino to Pope Silvester. He declares this gift a preposterous one ; 
 and cites a legend, frequently alluded to by the opponents of the pa- 
 pacy, that at the time of this gift the voice of an angel was heard 
 saying. To-day a vial of poison has been poured upon the church. 
 
 John of Paris finally enters into a particular investigation of the 
 question whether the pope can be deposed, or can abdicate. What 
 conclusions he must have arrived at on this point, may be gathered 
 from the preceding remarks. He distinctly affirmed, that as the pa- 
 pa(?y existed only for the benefit of the church, the pope ought to lay 
 down his office whenever it obstructed this end, the highest end of 
 christian love. 
 
 Such were the most noticeable of the immediate consequences result- 
 ing from the high pretensions set up for the papal power by Boniface 
 Ylll. We see expressed here for the first time, in opposition to 
 the arbitrary will of the pope, principles, by the operation of which, 
 in the midst of the events with which this century closed, a new shap- 
 ing could not fail to be given to the laws and constitutions of the 
 church. 
 
 The successor of Boniface, a very different man from himself, was 
 Benedict XI., a Dominican, who, up to this time, had lived strictly 
 according to the rule of his order. As a pope, too, he showed a be- 
 coming zeal for the welfare of the church, and sought to correct the 
 evils occasioned by the arbitrary will of his predecessor. He did eve- 
 rything he could honorably do, to restore a good understanding with 
 the French government. But it was only for the short period of eight 
 months that he was permitted to rule. He died in 130-i ; and a "re- 
 port prevailed that he was poisoned by the cardinals ; ^ a noticeable 
 sign of the times, when reports like these — a similar one prevailed 
 about the death of Celestin V. — were so repeatedly noised 
 abroad. A great fermentation would necessarily ensue at the election 
 of a new pope. It ^vas known that the exasperated king of France 
 still cherished sentiments of revenge against Boniface VIII., and 
 •was determined to have him convicted and condemned, as a heretic, 
 
 ^ See Villani, lib. 8, cap. 80, 
 
20 PAPACY AND CnURCn COXSTITUTIOX. 
 
 even after his fleath. The party of Bonifjicc had to strain every 
 nerve to vindicate his honor. Thus the election of a pope was retard- 
 ed hv the contest between an Itahan party, devoted to the interests 
 of Boniface, and a French party. Nine months had this schism last- 
 ed, when the cunning and sagacious cardinal da Prato (du Prat), who 
 led the French party, proposed a plan by which they might come to- 
 gether and unite in a choice. The other party, the Italians, should 
 nominate three candidates from their own number, and out of these 
 one should be chosen by the French within forty days. The Italian 
 party doubtless thought themselves secure of the victory ; for they 
 selected three men, who had been elevated to the rank of cardinals 
 bv Boniface YIII., to whom they were thoroughly devoted, and at 
 the same time, fiercely inimical to the king of France. But the car- 
 dinal du Prat outwitted them. He knew his men. He knew how to 
 find among the selected three, one who was ready to pay any price 
 that might be asked for the gratification of his ambition. This was 
 Bertrand d'Agoust, bishop of Bordeaux, Avho was reckoned among the 
 most zealous adherents of Boniface, and the most violent enemies of 
 king Philip. With the latter he had had a personal quarrel. The 
 cardinal du Prat reported to the king of France, as speedily as possi- 
 ble, all that had transpired, and explained to him how it now stood in his 
 own power to create the pope. He might offer the papal dignity to 
 the archbishop of Bordeaux on whatever terms he thought proper. The 
 king sought an interview with the much surprised bishop. He showed 
 him what he could do. He offered him the papal dignity on condition 
 of his compliance with six conditions. Amono; them were the follow- 
 ing : That he should reconcile the king and his friends to the church ; 
 pardon everything that had taken place ; give up to him for five years 
 the tenths in his whole kingdom to defray the expenses of war ; restore 
 to the Colonnas their cardinal dignities ; moreover, that he should pro- 
 mote several of the king's friends to the same rank, and institute an 
 investigation into the heresies of Boniface. There was still a sixth 
 condition which, for the present, was to be kept a profound secret. 
 Perilous as several of these conditions must have been to the papal 
 and christian conscience of the pope, yet he w^as ready to sell his soul 
 for the papal dignity, and he accepted them all. This was done in 
 the year 1805. He called himself pope Clement V. To the great 
 vexation of the Italian cardinals he did not come to Rome, but re- 
 mained at home in France, and had the ceremony of his coronation 
 performed in Lyons. The way in which he administered the papal 
 government, corresponded entirely to the way in which he had obtain- 
 ed it. What the Italians had predicted, when the pope, in despite of 
 every invitation, refused to leave France, actually took place. Home 
 did not very soon again become the- seat of the papacy. From the 
 year 1309 and onward this seat was transferred to Avignon ; and here 
 begins a new important epoch in the history of the papacy, tlui seventy 
 years residence of the popes in Avignon. Let us in the first place 
 take a general view of the consequences of these exceedingly intiuen- 
 tial events. 
 
ELECTION OF CLEMENT V. 21 
 
 As the independence of the seat of the papal government in the 
 ancient capital of the world had largely contributed towards jjromoting 
 the triumph of the papacy ; so tiie dependence, into which the popes fell 
 when removed at a distance from the ancient seat of their sjiiritual 
 sovereignty, led to consequences of an opposite kind. With Clement 
 V. began this disgraceful servility of popes dependant on the interests 
 of France ; a situation for which Clement had prepared the way by 
 the manner in which he obtained the papal dignity. The popes at 
 Avignon were often little better than tools of the French kings, who 
 used their spiritual power to promote the ends of French policy. 
 They served those kings in matters which stood in most direct contra- 
 diction to their spiritual vocation. They could not fail to make them- 
 selves odious and contemptible by the manner in which they acted in 
 these relations. The papal court at Avignon became the scat of a 
 still greater corruption than had disgraced the papal court in Rome. 
 The popes at Avignon took the liberty to elevate to the highest spirit- 
 ual dignities, to the rank of cardinals, persons Llie least fitted by age, 
 by character, or by education for such stations, — the most worthless 
 of men, either their own nephews, or persons recommended to them by 
 the French court ; and these Avignonese cardinals were in the habit 
 of abandoning themselves to every species of luxury and debauchery. 
 The extortions which, to the ruin of the church, were practised by the 
 Koman court, rose to a continually higher pitch and extended over a 
 greater compass, from the time of Clement V., who already provoked 
 thereby many complaints in France. The example of a wasteful ex- 
 penditure of church property, of simony and cupidity, here given by 
 the popes, found ready imitation in other churches, and the corrup- 
 tion of the church in all parts grew^ more atrocious every day. The 
 popes at Avignon would abate nothing from the old system of the 
 papal hierarchy, but rather pushed its pretensions to still greater 
 lengths. But the want which they betrayed of spiritual dignity, the 
 bad use they made of their power, the merely secular interest by which 
 they were so manifestly governed, stood in direct contradiction with 
 the tone in which they spoke. The quarrels in which they involved 
 themselves by their exercise of the papal power, brought it about, that 
 all the wickedness which reigned in the papal court at Avignon, and 
 which spread from that spot into the rest of the church, became 
 matter of common conversation. These quarrels served to call forth 
 many more of those voices of freedom, such as had first been heard 
 during the contests with Boniface VIII. ; and still bolder opinions 
 were expressed. A powerful reaction gradually forced a way for it- 
 self against the papal monarchy. Add to this, that the freer church- 
 ly spirit, which from the earliest times we perceive in the Gallic 
 church, and which was never in want for means of expressing itself, 
 obtained at this particular crisis a mighty organ in the university of 
 Paris. At this university, which in the period before us formed so 
 important a corporation, there was gradually developing itself an inde- 
 pendent and liberal theological tendency. By the men of this univer- 
 sity, the conduct of the popes and their relations at Avignon, were 
 
22 PAPACY AND CnURCn CONSTITUTION. 
 
 keenly watched. Tlie popes found severe judges in them. "While 
 the French cardinals could not tear themselves away from their plea- 
 sures at Avi«znon, and from the territory of France, nothing was more 
 hateful to the Italian cardinals than what appeared to their eyes, a 
 most lamentable exile of the Roman court. Notliing appeared to 
 tliom a greater scandal, than that dependance on French interests. 
 This opposition between the two parties prepared the way for a schism, 
 which was soon to break out, and which drew after it the most impor- 
 tant consequences. 
 
 Clement had soon to experience some of the deplorable effects 
 resulting from the relation, in which he had yoluntarily placed himself 
 to King Philip. After the death of the emperor Albert I., in the 
 Tear 1308, King Philip conceived the plan of elevating his brother, 
 Prince Charles de A^alois, to the imperial throne ; and the pope was to 
 serve as the instrument for carrying it into execution. This, it was 
 said, was the condition that had been kept so profound a secret. The 
 king intended to take the pope by surprise, to come upon him sud- 
 denly, with a numerous train of armed followers. But the plan was 
 divulged to the pope. As the Italian historian in this period, Yillani, 
 expresses himself; — " It pleased God, so to order it, that the Roman 
 church should not thus be wholly subjected to the court of France ; " ' 
 for, had this project been carried out, the servitude of the pope would 
 ■ have been doubled. Now, as the pope had not courage enough to 
 take an open stand against the king, he resorted, by the advice of the 
 crafty du Prat, to trick and deception, for the purpose of defeating 
 the king's object. While he ostensibly granted the king's request, he 
 secretly invited the German princes to hasten the emperor's election, 
 and gave his vote for Count Henr\^ of Luxemburg. The latter, Henry 
 Yll., was elected emperor ; and Philip saw his favorite plan defeated. 
 He now pressed the more urgently to have the process begun against 
 Boniface. The weak pope was obliged to permit that, in the year 
 liilO, the matter should be nght before the papal consistory. By 
 the enemies of Boniface the most atrocious things were charged against 
 him. This, under the existing circumstances, could not fail to give 
 great scandal to many. From several quarters, particularly from Ar- 
 ragon and S[)ain, complaints were uttered against so scandalous a 
 spectacle ; and the po})e was called upon to put a stop to it. Under 
 the pretext that a general council was to be convoked at Vienne, and 
 that there these affairs could be transacted with far greater publicity 
 and solemnity, he induced King Philip, finally, to consent that the 
 affair should be put off to the above-mentioned council. At this coun- 
 cil in Yiemie, which met in the year loll, the memory of Boniface 
 was at length solemnly vindicated. But the i)ope, moreover, put forth 
 a declaration, jrlacing the king in security against all the consequences 
 which njight How from his acts against Boniface, and, from the bulls 
 put forth by Boniface all those clauses were expunged or altered, 
 •which were hostile to French interests. 
 
 * Come piacque a Dio, per non volcre toposta alia casa di Francia. Villani, lib. 
 che la Ciiicsa di Koma fosse al tutto sot- 8, c. 101, fol. 437. 
 
POPES AT AVIGNON (jOHN XII.) 23 
 
 At the councJl of VIenne was terminated also another affair in Avhich 
 Clement had, in the most sliamcful manner, submitted to be used as a 
 tool of the French king. The order of the Kuights Templar had, by 
 the power and wealth of their establishments, excited the jealousy of 
 many. Various rumors were afloat respecting this order, — rumors 
 which are the less to be trusted, because we find in times the most 
 widely remote from each other similar reports concerning societies veil- 
 ed from the popular eye, and which in some way or other have incurred 
 the popular odium — whispers of unnatural abominations, supposed to 
 be practised in their secret conclaves. Persons of that order guilty 
 of criminal offences, had, while in prison, preferred charges against it, 
 with a view to procure their own release. King Philip the Fair would, 
 no doubt, be glad to believe anything Avhich would put it in his powar 
 to lay hold of the property of the order. In the year 1307, he caused 
 all the Knights Templar in France to be arrested. The trials were con- 
 ducted in the most arbitrary manner. At first, the pope complained that 
 the king should bring before a civil tribunal a suit against a spiritual or- 
 der, accusations relating to heresy and infidelity. He entered a protest 
 against the procedure of the king ; but had not courage to follow 
 up the step he had taken. At length, in the year 1308, he joined the 
 king in carrying on a common process. There has been much dispute 
 respecting this afiair. But even though individuals of the order may 
 have been guilty of various excesses, may by reason of their residence 
 in the East, have fallen into infidelity, yet no sufficient reason appears 
 to have existed for condemning the order at large. Expressions, for 
 the most part extorted by the rack, and which were often taken back 
 in the extremity of death, ought not, surely, to pass for good evidence. 
 Indeed, when justice is so arbitrarily administered, what evidence of 
 guilt can be deemed satisfactory ? Now, when many of the Knights 
 Templar had already fallen victims to mere tyrannical will, Clement, at 
 a council in the year 1311, declared the order abolished. Clement 
 died in 1314, leaving behind him a bad reputation, not merely among 
 the Italians, who could not pardon in him the transportation of the 
 papal court to Avignon, but also among the French. The judgment 
 passed upon him we may doubtless regard as an unanimous one.^ The 
 Italian historian, Villani, says of him, that he was very greedy of 
 money, given to simony, and to luxury. Respecting his morals, unfa- 
 vorable rumors were afloat. All benefices were said to be disposed of 
 for money .2 
 
 When, owing to the division among the cardinals, the papal chair 
 had remained vacant during a period of two years, the French party 
 once more triumphed, and John XXII., another Frenchman, succeeded 
 in mounting the papal throne. Like his predecessor, this pope was 
 bent on indemnifying himself for his dependance on France, by main- 
 taining the papal absolutism in relation to Germany. On the occasion 
 of a contest for the election of an emperor — between the Archduke 
 
 ' Compare the two accounts of his life Avign. torn. I, and wliat Villani says, 
 which JJaluz has published in the vit. pap. * Villani, lib. 9, c. 58. 
 
24 PAPACY AXD CnURCH COXSTITUTION'. 
 
 Frederic of Austria on the one side, and Duke Louis of Bavaria on 
 the other — the pope "vvas desirous of securing the decision to himself. 
 He wanted that everything should depend on his vote. He would not 
 pardon it in Duke Louis (Louis IV.) that he should be so confident 
 of liis power, as to act as emperor, without waiting for the pope's de- 
 termination : that he should form an alliance with the pope's enemies, 
 the GhibelHnes in Italy. Negotiations were of no avail. The matter 
 proceeded onward till it came to a war of ever increasing animosity 
 between the pope and the emperor. The former pronounced the 
 emperor under ban, in denunciations growing continually more violent, 
 and laid all those portions of Germany where he was recognized as 
 emperor, under the interdict. The emperor appealed from the pope 
 to a general council, before which he might -be allowed to prove the 
 justice of his cause to holy church and the apostolical see. Fierce 
 struggles in Germany followed as the consequence ; and amid these 
 contests many freer voices caused themselves to be heard. By some, 
 the interdict was observed ; by others, not. In many districts, eccle- 
 siastics, who were for observing the interdict, were banished. ^ The 
 emperor, in the year 1327, followed the invitation of his friends in 
 Italy and Rome, the Ghibellines, who invited him into that country. 
 This expedition of the emperor was attended with consequences of ^ 
 great moment to the general progress of reUgion. Pope John had 
 provoked dissatisfaction in many, and these took the side of the em- 
 peror. Under his protection, free-minded men could express them- 
 selves in a way which elsewhere would not have been suffered to go 
 unpunished. Various matters of dispute were here brought together, 
 and placed in connection with the contest which was now waging be- 
 tween the papacy and the empire, the church and the secular power, the 
 spiritual and the secular interest. We have, in the preceding period, 
 spoken of the controversies between the more rigid and the laxer party 
 of the Franciscans. We saw how the more rigid Franciscans, in their 
 contests with the popes, had been led into a course of reaction against 
 the secularization of the church. Pope John XXII., who, with his 
 obstinate temper, was bent on deciding all uncertain matters, had stirr- 
 ed up these controversies anew, by taking part against the more rigid 
 Franciscans. He refused to recognize a distinction set forth by some, 
 that while Christ and the apostles made use of earthly goods, they did 
 not in any proper sense own anything — the distinction between a bare 
 usufruct, and an earthly possession in the strict and proper sense. The 
 more rigid Franciscans rebelled against his decisions, and even had 
 the boldness to accuse him of heresy. There were among them at 
 
 ' See tlie Chronicle of the Franciscan mutually accused each other of heresy on 
 
 John of Wintcrtliur : Et interim clerus account of their ditfcrcnt modes of pro 
 
 gravitur fuit an;;ariatus ct compulsus ad ccdure : Iliac nmtuo se sinistre judicabant, 
 
 divina resumenda, et plures annuerunt, mutuo sihi non communicabant, sed fre- 
 
 non vcrciitcs latam scnteiuiam, ncc ultio- qucntcr se cxcludebant, unaquteque sue 
 
 ncm divinam. Multi etiam erant inoliedi- sensu secundum vcrbum apostoli quasi di- 
 
 entes, et ob hoc de locis suis expulsi, ct sic cam abuntiabat. Thcsaur. liist. lielvit. Ti- 
 
 tanilem facta fuit lamcntabilis ditformitas guri, 1735, p. 29. 
 ecclesiarum. And of tiic cliurohes that 
 
JOHN xxir. "defnesor pacis." 25 
 
 that time men of courage and sa;2;acitj, such as Michael of Chescna, 
 general of the order, who was deposed hy the pope ; William Occam 
 of England, distinguished among the philosophers and theologians of 
 his time. All tliese embraced the party of the emperor. Occam said 
 to him : " Defend me with the sword, and I will defend you with the 
 pen." The inquiries respecting evangelical perfection, respecting the 
 following after Christ, the different modes of the possession of proper- 
 ty, were easily connected Avith the inquiries respecting the relation of 
 spiritual things to secular in general. Especially worthy of notice is 
 a work which was called forth by these disputes, the title*^of which in- 
 dicates its contents — Defensor Facis. Its object was to show that, 
 inasmuch as church and state had their natural limits severally as- 
 signed to them, the peace between the two should theredy be defin- 
 itively settled. Its author was the emperor's physician and theologian, 
 MarslHus of Padua, earlier rector of the University of Paris, it is 
 true, John of Janduno, in Champagne, a Franciscan, is also mentioned 
 as co-author of this book ; and doubtless he may have had some share 
 in its composition ; but at all events, the work itself indicates plainly 
 enough that it is the product of one mind, and of an individual who 
 speaks of what he had seen and heard himself. It is in truth a work 
 that made an epoch. Not merely the excesses of the later papacy 
 are attacked in it, but the very foundations of the hitherto existing 
 fabric of the church are assailed. 
 
 A new position is here taken — an entirely new method and way of 
 looking at Christian truth. The whole Old Testament theocratical 
 element is discarded. This important appearance, the fore-token of 
 a new, protestant spirit, such as we could hardly expect to meet with 
 in the times we are speaking of, deserves, therefore, to be somewhat 
 more minutely considered by us. 
 
 The rock on which the Church reposes he holds to be Christ alone, 
 its author and founder.' The words of Christ, '' Upon this rock I 
 will build my church," he refers to Christ himself. In reply to those 
 who supposed, that the church destitute of a visible head would be in 
 want of something essential to its organization, just as if it were a body 
 without a head, he says : " Christ ever continues to be the head of 
 the church ; all apostles and ministers of the church are but his mem- 
 bers;" and he appeals in proof to Ephesians iv. And accordingly 
 Christ himself plainly said, that he would be with her to the end of 
 the world.2 The highest source of knowledge of the doctrines of 
 faith was, in his view, the holy Scriptures.3 *' By the apostles" says 
 he, " as organs immediately actuated and guided by divine power, the 
 
 ' Qui caput est et petra, super quam si earn absque capite in sui absentia reli- 
 
 fundiita est ecclesia catholica. He refers quisset, possumus dicere, quod Christus 
 
 for proof to the fourth chapter of the Epis- semper caput remunsit ecciesiae, oinnes- 
 
 tle to the Ephesians, and 1 Cor. x. See que apostoli et ecclesiastici ministri mera- 
 
 p. 246, cap. 17, in Goldasti monarchia Uo- bi-a. L. 1. p. 301. 
 
 man. imp. Francofurt. 1668, tom. II. ^ A sacro canone tanquam a fonte veri- 
 
 Et cum inducebatur, ecclesiam ace- tatis quaesitae facientes exordium caet. 
 
 phalam esse, neque fuisse ordinatam a L. 1. pag. 252. 
 Cliristo secundum optimam dispositionem, 
 
 VOL. V. 3 
 
26 PAPACY AND CnURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 precepts and counsels guiding to eternal salvation have been commit- 
 ted to writing, that in the absence of Christ and the apostles we might 
 tnow what they are." ' The author takes his point of departure from 
 a more sharply defined distinction of the ideas of church and state. 
 The idea of the state he takes from an Ante-Christian point of view, 
 inasmuch as he adopts the Politics of Aristotle, the standard authority 
 at that time, for the determination of such ideas. The state is a 
 society of men having reference to the eartldij life and its interests ;2 
 the church, a society having reference to the eternal life ; where we 
 find expressed the relation of the natural to the supernatural, answer- 
 in<'- to a distinction already noticed between the dona nataralla and 
 Buper-add'da. The state became necessary in order to counteract sin. 
 Had man continued loyal to the divine will, no such institution would 
 have been required.^ "lie finds the difference between the Old and 
 the New Testament dispensation to consist in this, that under the for- 
 mer, civil laws as well as religious were made known and sanctioned 
 bv divine authority. But Christ had kept all these matters in abey- 
 ance. He had left them to be settled by human laws, which all the 
 faithful should obey. He refers for proof to the words of Christ, 
 " Give to Ciesar the things that are Ciesar's," and to Romans xiii.'* 
 To the assertion that the gospel would be an imperfect dispensation if 
 civil relations could not also be ordered and settled by means of it ; 
 he replies, the two provinces ought clearly to be distinguished. The 
 evangelical law is sufficient for its specific end, which is to order the 
 actions of men in this present life so as to secure the life eternal. It 
 was not given for the end of determining law in reference to the rela- 
 tions of this earthly life. It was for no such end that Christ came 
 into the world. Hence the necessity of distinguishing different rules 
 of human conduct by their relation to different ends. One is a divine 
 rule which gives no instruction whatever about conducting suits in civil 
 law, and actions for recovery ; nor yet, does it forbid this. And for 
 this reason the gospel gives no particular precepts with regard to such 
 matters. This belongs to the province of human law. He refers for 
 illustration to the conduct of Christ in declining to act as an arbitra- 
 tor in the dispute concerning an inheritance.^ If any were disposed 
 
 ' Per ipsoruin (lictaminaconscripta sunt talium specialiter continentem, ct in hoc 
 
 velut per orgaiia (jiua'dau) ad hoc muta proj»ortionaliter so habcntem huinanae legi 
 
 et directa iinincdiate divina virtute, per quantum ad aliquam sui partem. Verura 
 
 quam siquidem le<,'em, pricceptaet eonsilia hujusmodi praecepta in evan<,'elica k^ge 
 
 salutis a'ternae in ipsius Cluisli atciue apo- non tradidit Christus, sed tradjia vel tra- 
 
 stolorum absentia, coni])rchendere valere- denda supposuit in huinanis legibus 
 
 mus. L. 1. p. 168. quas observariet principantibus secundum 
 
 2 Vivere et bene vivere mundanum, ac cas omncm animam hunianam obedire 
 
 quae propter ipsum necessaria sunt. L. 1. praecepit, in his saltern, quae non adver- 
 
 p. 158. sarentur legi salutis. P. 215. 
 
 •* In reference to man's primitive state : * Quod per legem evangelicam suffi- 
 
 in quo siquidem permansisset, nee sii)i aut cienter dirigiinur in agendis aut declinan- 
 
 suae posteritati necessaria fuisset officio- disin vita praesenii, pro statu tamen ven- 
 
 rum civilium institutio vel distinctio. P. turi saeculi seu aeternae salutis conse- 
 
 161. quendae, aut supplicii dcclinandi propter 
 
 * Mosi legem Dens tradidit observando- quae lata est, non quidem pro eontentiosis 
 
 rum in statu vitae praesentis, ad conten- actibus hominum civiliter reducendis ad 
 
 tiones hominum dirimendas, praecepta aequalitatem aut commeutiurationem de- 
 
" DEFENSOR PACIS. " ' 27 
 
 to call the evan_G;elical law an imperfect one, because no rules were to 
 be drawn from it for the regulation of these matters, they might, with 
 equal propriety, call it imperfect, because the principles of the healing 
 art, the doctrines of mathematics, or the rules of navigation were not 
 to be derived from it.^ 
 
 We have already remarked that Marsilius looked upon the holy 
 Scriptures as constituting alone the ultimate source of all our know- 
 ledijre of the Christian faith ; to them alone as contradistin":;uished 
 from all human writings, he ascribes infallibility.^ Yet it was his 
 opinion that the holy Scriptures would have been giv^en in vain, nay 
 would have proved an injury to mankind, if the doctrines necessary to 
 salvation could not be derived from them with certainty. Hence it 
 followed that Christ would clearly reveal these doctrines to the major- 
 ity of the faithful, when they searched after the true sense of the 
 holy Scriptures and invoked his assistance ; so that the doctrine drawn 
 from the holy Scriptures by the majority of believers in all times, 
 ought to be the rule for all. And hence he concluded that the highest 
 respect was due to the decisions of general councils.^ For proof of 
 this he appealed to Christ's promise, that he would be with his church 
 to the end of the world, and to the fact that the first apostolic assem- 
 blv, Acts XV, ascribed their decisions to the illumination of the Holv 
 Ghost. But he dissented from the well-known maxim of St. Augus- 
 tine, Ego vero evangelio non crederem, nisi me catholicae ecclesiae 
 commoveret auctoritas ; since by this expression the authority of the 
 sacred Scriptures seemed- to be ultimately based on human authority. 
 But his interpretation of these words evidences the freer christian 
 striving of his mind, although the position reached by the theological 
 culture of that period did not permit him as yet to arrive at clearer 
 and more comprehensive views on this subject. These words were 
 represented as simply having reference either to the fact, that it is by 
 the testimony of the church we come to know that these Scriptures 
 are apostolical, or also, and at the same time, to the fact, that we 
 adopt the doctrines therein contained as the doctrines of salvation first 
 of all upon the testimony of the collective body of believers. The 
 former view however, he thought to be the one which accorded best 
 with St. Paul's teachings in the epistle to the Galatians ; for the words 
 of Christ were not true on the ground that the church gave witness to 
 
 bitam pro statu seu sufficicntia vitae prae- canonicae appellantur. F. 254, c. 19. 
 
 sentis, eo quod Christus in mundum non ^ Quoniam frustra dedisset Christus le- 
 
 venit ad liujusmodi I'cgulandos pro vita gem salutis aeternae, si ejus verum intel- 
 
 praesenti, sed futura tantunimodo. Et lectum, et queni credere fidelibus est neces- 
 
 propterea diversa est temporalium et hu- sarium ad salutem, non aperiret eisdem 
 
 Miauuruin actuum regula, diversimode di- liunc quaerentil)us. et pro ipso invocanti- 
 
 rigens ad hos tines. F. 216. bus simul, sed circa ipsum tideliuni plural- 
 
 ' Si ex hoc diceretur imperfecta, aeque itatem errare sineret. Quinimo talis lex 
 
 convenienter imperfecta dici posset, quo- non solum ad salutem foret inutilis, sed ia 
 
 niam per ipsam medicare corporales aegri- hominum aeternam perniciem tradita vi- 
 
 tudiiies, aut mensurare raagnitudines, vel deretur. Et ideo pie tenendum, deterrai- 
 
 oceauum iiavigare nescimus. L. c. nationes conciliorum generalium in sensi- 
 
 * Quod nullam scripturam irrevocabili- bus scripturae dubiis a spiritu sancto suae 
 
 ter verum creJere vel fateri teuemur de veritatis originem sumere. Cap. 19, foL 
 
 necessitate salutis aeternae, nisi eas, quae 254. 
 
28 PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 them, but the testimony of the church was true, because it harmonized 
 with the words of Christ ; for the apostle Paul says, not even an an^el 
 from heaven could preach any other gospel ; so that although the 
 entire church should preach another gospel, it could .not be a true 
 one.^ 
 
 He objected to the arbitrary extension of the predicate spiritual to 
 everything that appertained to, or proceeded from the clergy. What- 
 ever served for the maintenance of the clergy was not on that account, 
 according to Holy Scripture, to be called spiritual, since it related 
 simply to the earthly life ; but it should be called secular. In truth, 
 many things were done by the clergy, which could not, with any 
 propriety, be called spiritual .2 As might easily be inferred from the 
 exposition we have just given of his ideas of the church and the state, 
 he ascribed to the church a purely spiritual authority only ; and de- 
 nied that she possessed any authority whatever of a secular character, 
 or which had reference to things secular. He disclaimed for her the 
 possession of any species of coercive authority. According to the 
 doctrine of the New Testament, (2 Timothy, ii,) bishops should rather 
 hold themselves aloof from all secular aflfairs. All believers without 
 distinction should own subjection to the civil magistrate, and obey him 
 in all thiuji'S not standing in conflict with eternal salvation. With what 
 sort of conscience, then, could a priest, of whatever rank or station, 
 presume to absolve subjects from their oath of allegiance binding 
 them to the government that is over them ? To do this he pronounces 
 a heresy .3 
 
 The principles of ecclesiastical law that had prevailed down to this 
 time respecting the method to be pursued with heretics, should, ac- 
 cording to the ideas set forth in this work, be altered throughout. To 
 the church should belong no sort of coercive or primitive power. This 
 should belong exclusively to the state, and be applied exclusively to 
 things commanded or forbidden by the laws of the state ; as, in fact, 
 immoralities could not be punished by the state, as such, but only so 
 far as they were a violation of the laws of the state. Many things 
 contrary to the laws of God, must needs be tolerated by the state.4 
 Civil and divine punishments belong to entirely different provinces. 
 It might happen, that one who ought to be punished according to the 
 laws of the state, would not be found punishable before the divine 
 tribunal.^ What is a heresy, and what is 7ioi a heresy, are questions 
 
 ' Non cnim dicta Christi vera sunt cau- talia et in Icf^em divinam, ut fornicationis, 
 
 salitcr. eo quod eisdeni tesiificetur ecclcsia (juae perniittit etiam scienter legislator 
 
 catholica, Kcd testimonium ecdesiae causal- liumanus. nee coactiva potentia jjiohihet, 
 
 iter verum est propter veritatem dietorum nee prohil)ere potest aut debet episeopus 
 
 Christi. ¥. 255, vel saeerdos, L. c. f. 248. 
 
 ' Non omnes eorum actus spirituales * Peceans in legem liumanam pcccato 
 
 sunt, nee dici debent, quinimo ipsorum aliquo, puuielur in alio saeculo non in 
 
 sunt multi civiles actus contentiosi et car- quantum peccans in legem liumanam : 
 
 iiales seu temporales. Yol. 192 multa cnim sunt humana lege prohibita, 
 
 '•' Fol. 203. quae sunt divina lege ])ermissa, ut si non 
 
 * Non propterca, quod in legem divinam restitucrit quis miituum statute tempore 
 
 tantummodo peccat quis, a prineijjante propter impoteniiam, casu fortuito, obli- 
 
 punitur. Sunt enim multa peccata mor- vione, aegritudinc vcl alio quodam impe- 
 
" DEFENSOR PACIS." 29 
 
 for the priest to decide. He may correct tlie person found guilty, 
 warn him, and threaten him with eternal punishment : but no other 
 penalties come within his power ; just as in all other departments of 
 knowledge, — in the art of healing, in trade, he who understands may 
 decide as to what is right and wrong in his science, but not with the 
 sanction of a penalty. Heresy, however, may be punished by the 
 state ; yet only so far as it is in violation of the laws of the state ; the 
 state having the power to ordain, that no heretic, no unbeliever shall 
 dwell within its domain. But, if this be permitted to a heretic by the 
 laws of the state, as it has been permitted even among Christian na- 
 tions, no one has a right to punish him.^ Just as a man may trans- 
 gress the rules of some science or trade, and yet will not be punished, 
 on that account, except so far as he transgresses the laws of the state. 
 A man may drink, make shoes, practise the art of healing, as he 
 pleases, or as he can ; but he is never punished for this, unless by so 
 doing he transgresses the laws of the state. ^ 
 
 Having drawn this strict line of demarcation between the provinces 
 of the state and of the church, the author pronounces that ecclesiastics 
 committing actions punishable according to the civil laws become sub- 
 ject to the coercive power of the state. Inasmuch — says he — as 
 those w4io are designated by the common name of clergy, may some- 
 times, by omission or commission, be guilty of sin, and some — would 
 to God they did not sometimes constitute the majority ^ — are actual- 
 ly so guilty to the injury and wrong of others ; it follows, that they 
 also fall under the jurisdiction of those judges who have coercive author- 
 ity, power to punish the transgressors of human laws ; and he cites in 
 proof, Romans xiii.'* In contending against the exemption of the 
 clergy from civil jurisdiction, he says, " nothing spiritual belongs to 
 the crimes of ecclesiastics ; they are fleshly actions, and the more flesh- 
 ly, in the same proportion as it is more difficult and shameful for a 
 priest to sin, since by sinning he gives occasion for sin, and makes it 
 easy to those whom he is bound to restrain from it." 
 
 dimento, non punietur ex hoc in alio sae- ' Causa ejus generalis est, quoniam ne- 
 culo per judicem coactivum secundum le- mo quantumcunque peccans contra disci- 
 gem divinam, qui tamen per judicem co- plinas speculativas aut operativas quas- 
 activum secundum legem humanam juste cumque punitur vel arcetur in hoc saeculo 
 punitur. Ibid. praecise in quantum hujusmodi, sed in 
 ' Quodsi humana lege prohibitum fuerit, quantum peccat contra praeceptum huma- 
 haereticum aut aliter intidelem in regione nae legis. Sed enim inebriari aut calceos 
 manere, qui talis in ipsa repertus fuerit, facere vel vendere cujuscunque modi, 
 tanquam legis humanae transgressor poena prout possit aut velit quilibet, medicari et 
 vel suppliciohuic transgressioni eadem lege docere ac similia reliqua otiiciorum opera 
 statutis in hoc saeculo debet arceri. Si exercere pro libito si prohibitum non esset 
 vero haereticum aut aliter infidelem com- liumano lege, nequaquam arceretur ebrio- 
 morari tidelibus eadem provincia non fue- sus aut aliter perverse agens in operibus 
 rit prohibitum humana lege, quemadmo- reliquis. Ibid. 
 
 dum haereticis ac semini Judaeorum jam ' Et agant ipsorum aliqui, utinara non 
 
 humanis legibus permissum exstitit, etiam plurimi quandoque de facto, 
 
 temporibus Christianorum populorum, * Fol. 211. 
 
 priucipium atque pontiticum, dico cuipiam ^ Eo etiam carnaliorcs atque temporali- 
 
 non licere haereticum aut aliter infidelem ores judicandae magis, quanto secundum 
 
 quemquam judicare vel arcere poena vel ipsa presbyter aut episcopus gravius et tur- 
 
 supplicio reali aut personali pro statu vi- plus peccat, his, quos a talibus revocare 
 
 tae praesentis. Fol. 217. debet, delinquendi praebcns occasionem et 
 
 3* 
 
30 * PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 So, again, he distinguishes between what God does bj himself and 
 that which he does through the instrumentality of the priest. Adopt- 
 ing the view held by Peter Lombard, he asserts, that it is God alone 
 who bestows forgiveness of sins where its conditions are present in 
 true penitence, and God alone who can purify the soul from the stains 
 of sin. He distinguishes from this the declaration of the priest, which 
 has reference to a man's relation to the outward church. To the 
 priest, also it belongs to change a greater punishment which is really 
 due into some minor one voluntarily undertaken. ' Accordingly he 
 declares strongly against the power arrogated by the pope of absolving 
 men from their obligation to observe the laws of God, with allusion to 
 the pope's conduct towards the emperor Louis. He accuses the pope 
 of heresy in his proceedings towards that emperor.^ The pope, 
 saj's he, excites his own subjects to rebel against that catholic prince 
 by certain devilish writings and discourses, which he calls, however, 
 apostolical, pronouncing them absolved from the oath of allegiance, by 
 which, in good truth, they were and stili are bound to that prince. 
 Such absolutions he proclaims through certain ministers of his wicked- 
 ness, who are hoping to be promoted by that bishop to ecclesiastical 
 offices and benefices. It is plain that this is not an apostolical, but a 
 devilish transaction ; for it thus comes about, that this bishop and his 
 companions in wickedness, blinded by avarice, pride and ambition, and 
 full of all malice, as any one may perceive, so lead all that follow 
 them, as that they fall into mortal sin.^ They are betrayed by this 
 most holy father and his servants, hurried into treason, robbery, mur- 
 der and every species of crime ; and unless they die in penitence, and 
 find mercy with God on account of their gross ignorance, must be 
 plunged into everlasting destruction. For to every creature endowed 
 with reason it must be certain, that neither the Roman bishop nor any 
 other priest has power to absolve any man whatever from such, or from 
 any other lawful oath, without reasonable cause. He pronounces it 
 an abominable transaction, that the pope, through certain false breth- 
 ren who were agape for church dignities, should direct tlie preaching 
 of a crusade against the subjects of the emperor, as a thing well 
 pleasing to God."* He pronounces the forgiveness of sins promised by 
 the pope^ (indulgences) a delusive thing ; for, according to the Catho- 
 
 facilitatera sui exemplo pcrverso. Fol. et per quosdam et falsos fratres sitientes 
 
 242. ecclesiasticas dignitates taiiquam Deo sit 
 
 ' Fol. 206 sq. acceptum, quemadinoduin in transmarinis 
 
 ^ Fol. 283: Novum genus exercet nc- partibus cxpugnare paganos, praedicarifu- 
 quitiaejquod manifeste viJetur haereticara cit ubique. Fol. 285. 
 saperc iabcm. * rroinised even to those who were unablo 
 
 ^ Fol. 284 : Secundum hoc et ex hoc from bodily weakness to take part them- 
 
 cpiscopus iste cum omnibus sibi complici- selves in the expedition, but yet aided it 
 
 bus ordinatoribus, courfcnsoribus et execu- by their pecuniary contrit)utions ; as the 
 
 toribus sermone, scriptura vel opere coeci words stand : non potcntil)US propter cor- 
 
 existentes cupiditate, avaritia, superbia poris debilitatem id scelus explere, si ad 
 
 cum ambitione sumniaque, ut omnil)us proprios ipsorum sunitus id per alios us- 
 
 constat, iniquitate repleti, dufatuni ])rae- que in idem tempus j)rocurav(.rint perpe- 
 
 bent sibi credentibus et assequentibus ad trari, uut summam illam ad hoe sutiiciea- 
 
 casum et praecipitationem in tbveam mor- tem exhibucrint uefariitf cxactoribus suis. 
 
 taliiun peccatorum. Ibid. 
 
 * Ft quod horret auditus, id praedicat, 
 
" DEFENSOR PACIS." 31 
 
 lie faith, it could be doubtful to no one, that to those who took part in 
 such a war, this ridiculous and groundless absolution, could be of no 
 use, but must rather prove an inj\iry.' Yet, for the gratification of 
 his ungodly desires, he so deceives the simple, — granting them in 
 words, what lies beyond his power, thus betraying souls to everlasting 
 perdition. 
 
 The author of this work perceived already the baseless, unsubstan- 
 tial character of the whole hierarchical system ; and with a boldness 
 and freedom from all bias, truly worthy of admiration, showed his 
 ability to distinguish the original truth from later impositions. He dis- 
 covered already, that originally there was but one priestly office, and 
 no distinction of the office of bishops from that of presbyters.^ '' How 
 is it," says he, " that some unscrupulous flatterers dare affirm that 
 every bishop has received from Christ a plenitude of power even over 
 his own clergy, to say nothing of the laity ; while neither Peter nor 
 any other apostle ever presumed, by word or deed, to arrogate to 
 themselves any such authority ? They who affirm this, should be 
 laughed at. They should not be believed ; still less should they be 
 feared ; for the holy Scriptures, in their literal and manifest sense, 
 tell us quite the contrary."3 So, too, he utterly denies the precedence 
 of rank ascribed to Peter over the rest of the apostles ; and he under- 
 stands very well how to prove, from the New Testament, the ground- 
 lessness of this assumption.4 But even supposing that a certain 
 authority may have been conceded to Peter by the other apostles, yet 
 it would by no means follow from it, he remarks, that this authority 
 was transmitted to the Roman church ; for there is no reason why the 
 same thing might not be said, just as well, of the church at Jerusalem 
 or at Antioch, or of any other church. It was true of the Apostles, 
 generally, that to no one of them was a distinct and separate church 
 assigned ; but they were commissioned to preach the Gospel to all 
 people.^ It could not be proved from the law of God, nor by any 
 Scripture which it is necessary to salvation to believe, that it was ever 
 determined by Christ, or by an apostle, or by the collective body of 
 the apostles, that a bishop of some one particular province, should be 
 called particularly the successor of Peter or of any other apostle, or 
 that he should be accounted more than the others, however unequal 
 the apostles may have been among themselves ; but he rather was, in 
 a certain sense, successor of Peter and of the rest of the apostles, 
 
 ' Hanc derisibilem et inanera absolu- quam episcopum habere a Christo plcni- 
 
 tionem. nihil proticere, sed nocere. !Fol. tudineni potestatis, etiam in clericos, ne- 
 
 286. dum in laicos, cum beatus Petrus aut alter 
 
 * We have an illustration of his free apostolus nunquam talem sibi potestatein 
 
 spirit of inquiry in his method of proving adscribere praesumserit opere vel sermo- 
 
 this from Acts xx, Fol. 239 : Ecce quod in ne ? Hoc enim asserentes deridendi sunt, 
 
 ccciesia unius municipii plures allocutus nihil credendi minusqne timendi, cum 
 
 est apostolus tanquam episcopus, quod non scripturae oppositum clament in literali et 
 
 fuit nisi propter sacerdotum pluralitatem, manifesto sensu ipsarum. 
 
 qui omnes episcopi dicebantur, propter * Yo\. 241, et sq. 
 
 hoc, quod superintendentes esse debebant ^ Quia nullus apostolorum lege divina 
 
 populo. determinatus fuit omnino ad populum ali- 
 
 "* Fol. 243 : Cur ergo et unde assumunt quem vel locum. Fol. 244. 
 adulatores sacrilegi quidam dicere, quem- 
 
32 ' PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 v^ho came nearest to them in copying their lives and their holy man- 
 ners ;i according to the saying of Christ, that they were his mother, 
 his brothers and his sisters, Avho did the will of his Father in heaven, 
 Matthew xii. The bishop of Rome ought rather to be called successor 
 of the Apostle Paul who for two years preached the Gospel at Rome, 
 than tlie successor of Peter. It could not even be shown from the 
 New Testament, that Peter had ever been at Rome.^ The free, in- 
 quiring spirit, and the sharp discernment of this man, are evidenced in 
 the skill with which he shows up the idle character of those tales, so 
 long time believed, about the labors of Peter in Rome, and his there 
 meeting with Paul. It must certainly be regarded, he says, as very 
 singular and surprising that Luke, the author of the Acts of the 
 Apostles, and Paul, should no where make mention of Peter. How 
 can this fact be reconciled with the statement, that Peter had labored 
 in Rome before Paul, when it appears from the last chapter of the 
 Acts, that to the Jews in Rome the Christians were a wholly unknown 
 sect ? How can this supposition be reconciled with the fact that, 
 when Paul reproached the Jews for their unbelief, he did not appeal 
 to the earher preaching of Peter ; that Paul, during his two years' 
 residence in Rome, should never come in contact with Peter ; or that 
 the history of the apostles should have taken no notice of the fact ? 3 
 He asserts the original equality of all bishops, and their independence 
 of each other, and traces the origin of a certain primacy of the Ro- 
 man church to the times of the emperor Constantino. 4 Though he 
 did not look upon the primacy of the Roman church as anything origi- 
 nally inherent in that church, yet he supposes that such a primacy 
 sprang gradually, of its own accord, out of existing relations. The 
 high consideration in which the great capital of the world universally 
 stood, and the eminently flourishing condition of the sciences at that 
 centre of learning, were the occasions that led men to seek counsel 
 and advice especially from that church, and to look to that quarter for 
 their clergy. As an example, he compares the relation of the Univer- 
 sity of Orleans to that of Paris. He himself had been witness how 
 the University of Paris had been consulted for advice by the former.* 
 
 ^ Scd ille vcl illi magis sunt aliquo mo- ibidem fuisse et praedicasse, quomodo non 
 
 do beati Tctri et reliquorum apostolorum dixissct aut ipsum hujus testem induxisset 
 
 successores, qui vitae et ipsorum Sanctis ncgotii, qui resurrectionis Christi testis ex- 
 
 moribus amplius conformantur. Fol. 245. stitcrat. Quis opinabitur, quod bicnnio 
 
 ' Dico per scripturuni sacram convinci existcns ibidem Paulas nunquam conycr- 
 
 non posse, ipsum fuisse Romanum episco- sationem, coUationem aut contubernium 
 
 Sum, et quod am])lius est, ipsum unquam habuerit cum b. Tctro ■? Et si Iniliuissct, 
 ,omae fuisse. Fol. 245. quod dc ipso nuUam penitus mentionera 
 '■* Admirandissimum dico. quod b. Lucas, fecessit, qui actuum scripsit historiam ? 
 qui actus apostolorum scripsit, et Paulus * Qui quandam praecmincntiam et po- 
 apostolus de bcato Tetro nullam prorsus testatem tribuit episcopis et ccclesiae Ro 
 mentionem fecerunt. Tlien, after a quota- manorum super caetcras mundi ccclesias 
 tion from Acts 28: 19 — 23 : Dicat ergo mi- sen prcsbytcros omncs. Fol. 243. 
 hi veritatis inquisitor, non quaerens con- * Sic et qui librum bunc in liicem de- 
 tendere solum, si probabile sit alicui, bea duxit, studiosorum universitatem Aure- 
 tum Petrum Romam praevenisse Paulum lianis degentem vidit, audivit et scivit per 
 et nibil nuntiasse de Cbristi fide, quam Ju- suos nuntios et cpistolas rcquircntcm et 
 daei loqucntcs ad Paulum sectam voca- supplicantem Paricnsi universitati tan- 
 bant ? Amplius Paulus in reprehendendo quam famosiori et veneratiori caet. Fol. 
 ipsos de incredulitate, si novisset Cepham 252. 
 
DEFENSOR PACIS." ?>?, 
 
 oo 
 
 He held to a certain priority of one cliurch, ^vhich, however, was not 
 connected with any right of jurisdiction over the others ; and to this 
 priority, not indeed as anything necessary, or founded on divine right, 
 but yet as a thing salutary and conducive to the preservation of church 
 unity. 1 Did any one ask, to what bishop should such a place of emi- 
 nence be conceded ? It ought, in good truth, to be said, to the one 
 who excelled all the others in life and doctrine ; and the chief stress 
 here was to be laid on the life. Did any one ask, to what ecclesias- 
 tical diocese should such a distinction be conceded ? that one should be 
 designated, in which were to be found a clerical body most distinguish- 
 ed for life and doctrine. Yet, provided only the other requisites were 
 present, it was very proper that such consideration might still continue 
 to be conceded, according to ancient custom, to the church of Rome. 
 But Marsilius takes strong ground against the authority ascribed to the 
 pope and the cardinals to decide anything about matters" of faith. 
 " How in case," says he, " that a heretic should be elevated to the 
 papal dignity ; or that one after having attained to that dignity, should 
 from ignorance or from wickedness fall into some heresy ; ought the 
 heretical decisions of such a pope to pass for valid ?" He adduces, 
 for example, the decision contrary to the gospel given by Pope John 
 XXII, on the matter of evangelical poverty ; a decision which he put 
 forth to the end that he might not appear to have fallen from Christian 
 perfection, and that he might assert his secular dominion.2 He appeals 
 again to the bull Unam sanctam issued by pope Boniface VIII, which 
 he calls a thing false to the very core.3 
 
 The supreme authority to determine in all disputed matters pertain- 
 ing to faith he ascribes to a general council, assembled with the consent 
 and participation of all the faithful ; and to such a council he thinks 
 the guidance of the Holy Spirit may have been promised.4 He 
 considered it desirable, especially in the then existing condition of the 
 clergy, that laymen should also be allowed a seat in the councils. ■ " In 
 the present corrupt state of the church," says he, " the great majority 
 of the priests and bishops are but little, and if we may speak freely, 
 quite insufficiently experienced in the sacred Scriptures ; because they 
 hanker after the benefices, to which ambitious, covetous aspirants, 
 skilled in canonical law, attain, by services rendered, by petition, by 
 money or the aid of the secular power.^ I call God and the multi- 
 tude of beUevers to witness," says he, " that I have seen and heard 
 
 ' Quamvis non sit lege divina praecep- alissimam omnium excogitabilium falso- 
 
 turn, quoiiiam et sine hoc Hdei unitas, licet rum. Ibid, 
 
 non sic faciliter salvaretur, expedire dico * Fol. 253. 
 
 ad hanc unitatem facilius et decentius ob- ^ Nunc vero propter ecclesiastici regi- 
 
 servandam. Fol. 265. minis corruptionem plurima pars sacerdo- 
 
 Ne summam Ciiristi paupertatem et turn et episcoporum in sacra scriptura pe- 
 
 perfectionis statum deserere videretur, cum riti sunt jnirum, et si diccre liccat insuffi- 
 
 hoc volens temporalia etiam immobilia in cientcr, eo quod tcmporalia beneficiorum, 
 
 suo venditandi retinere dominio et secula- quae assequuntur officiosis ambitiosi. cupil 
 
 riter principari. Fol. 257. di et causidici quidam, obtinere volunt et 
 
 Nunc autem earn ab initio nunc et obtinent obsequio, precc vel pretio vel sae- 
 
 semper constat esse falsam, erroneam culari potentia. Fol. 258. 
 cuuctisque civiliter viventibus praejudici- 
 
34 PAPACY AND CHURCH COXSTITUTIOX. 
 
 of very many priests and abbots and some prelates, incapable even of 
 preaching a sermon according to the rules of grammar." He men- 
 tions it as a fact, that he had known a young man not twenty years 
 old, absolutely ignorant of the doctrines of religion, to whom the office 
 of a bishop, in a respectable and populous city, had been granted, 
 though he had not as yet passed through the inferior grades of cleri- 
 cal consecration. And this thing, the pope, who as vicar of Chnsr, 
 pretended to possess the " plenitude of power" in the distribution of 
 benefices, had often done, with a view to secure the favor of the pow- 
 erful. Now for what purpose should a parcel of such bishops and 
 priests assemble together ? How should such persons be able to dis- 
 tinguish between the true and the false sense of the Scriptures ? 
 Owing, then, to the deficiencies of such persons, it was necessary to 
 call in the assistance of discreet laymen, sufficiently versed in the 
 sacred Scriptures, men distinguished also by their lives and manners 
 above such bishops and priests. ^ He describes in general the great 
 mischief that grew out of the arbitrary power conceded to the popes 
 in making appointments to ecclesiastical offices. Supposing the Roman 
 bishop to be a proud man, sunk also in other vices, a man disposed to ex- 
 ercise secular powers such as several had been known to be in modern 
 times ; a person of this character, to gratify his insatiable avarice, or 
 his other passions, to gain the favor of the powerful, would put up 
 ecclesiastical offices for sale ; and to please the same class, would con- 
 fer such offices on their relatives and friends. And that this not only 
 might be done, but had actually long been done and was still done, 
 was a fact testified by an experience not hidden from any of the faith- 
 ful .2 He speaks as an eye witness himself of the corruption of the 
 Roman court. " They," says he, " who have trod the threshhold of 
 the Roman cburt, or to speak more strictly according to truth, that 
 house of traffic, that abominable den of robbers, will have seen, and 
 they who have not themselves visited it, w^ill have heard from the reports 
 of numerous credible eye witnesses, that it is the resort of all the vicious 
 crew who push a trade with spiritual as they would with secular 
 things.3 For what else do you find there, but a confluence from all 
 quarters of those who exercise the trade of simony ? What else than 
 the bustling of attorneys, the intrigues of caballers, and persecutions 
 of righteous men ? There the just cause of the innocent runs an 
 awful hazard of being defeated ; or if they cannot redeem it with 
 money, of being so long retarded, that, exhausted, wearied out by 
 countless vexations, they are finally compelled to abandon their just 
 and pitiable cause ; for these human laws are loud and noisy, while 
 divine doctrines arc silent, or let themselves be heard but seldom. 
 There it is deliberated how the countries of Christian men may be 
 forcibly wrested from the hands of those to whom the guardianship of 
 
 * Fol. 258. nut qui ab hac abstinuerunt, numcrosae 
 
 ^ Ful. 2G2. lide di^^norum multitudinis relatione dis 
 
 ^ Cerncnt sc ipsislimpide, qui "Romanac cent, eain paenc sceleratorum omnium ct 
 
 curiae, imo verius cum veritatc dicam, do- ncj^otiatorum tam spiritualium (}uam tem- 
 
 mus ncgotiationis, et ea quae latronuin poraliura rcceptaculum esse faetam. Fol. 
 
 horribilioris speluucae limiua visitarunt, 274. 
 
" DEFENSOR PACIS." 35 
 
 them has been lawfully comrnlttofl. There no pains are talcen, no 
 counsels held to win souls to Christ : there no order, but only everlast- 
 ing confusion dwells. I who have been there and have seen it,' fan- 
 cied to myself that I beheld the fri^^htful iniafre which Nebuchadnezzar 
 saw in his dream (Daniel ii.) ; for what else is this great image than 
 the condition of the Roman court, which once was fearful to the per- 
 verse and wicked, but is now, to all Avho study it near at hand, awful 
 to contemplate?^ The upper part of the image, to which the eves 
 and the affections of the mind are attracted, gold and silver ; the belly 
 and hips, the bustle of worldly strife and the trade of simony ; not to 
 mention the thunder of the ban against the faithful of Christ, who, in 
 secular things, refuse to submit to the pope and his church, and refuse, 
 though rightly, to commit temporal things to him. What are the thighs 
 of brass but the sumptuous apparatus for all pleasures and all vanities, 
 ■\vhich even to laymen, seem indecent, but which those persons parade 
 forth to the senses of men who ought to present to all others an exam 
 pie of purity and honor ? ^ He complains that the popes supposed 
 people of the lowest order, altogether without experience, wealth 
 or secular dominion, capable, if they attained suddenly and at once 
 to so great wealth and power, of holding rule over princes and na- 
 tions.'* He points at the popes as the destroyers of the church. 
 *' The modern popes," says he, " do not defend the Catholic faith and 
 the multitude of believers, who are in the true sense the bride of 
 Christ, but prostrate them to the ground : they do not preserve her 
 beauty, which consists in unity, but they disgrace it, by sowing tares 
 and contentions : they sever her members, and separate them one from 
 another ; and allowing no place to the poverty and humility that tru- 
 ly belong to the following after Christ, but rather banishing it from 
 their presence, they prove themselves to be not servants, but enemies 
 of the bridegroom." 5 
 
 The author of this remarkable book must assuredly have atoned 
 with his life for such freedom of thought, if the contest between the 
 pope and the emperor had not secured his safety in spite of the sen- 
 tence of condemnation passed upon him by the former. It is true, 
 the principles expressed in his book met as yet with no response ; but 
 it was still an important sign of the times, that such principles were 
 expressed. 
 
 ' Qui vidi et affui. Fol. 274. discreti nuper ditati, fidclibus omnibus im- 
 
 ' Quid nempe aliud ingens hacc statua, portabiles Hunt. Fol. 279. 
 quam status personarum curiae llomanae * Sic igitur propter temporalia conten- 
 
 seu summi pontificis, qui olim perversis dendo non vere defenditur sponsa Christi. 
 
 hominum terribilis, nunc vero cunctis stu- Earn etenim, quae vere Cliristi eponsa est, 
 
 diosis horribilis est aspc 'u. lb. catholicam fidem et fideliiun multitudi- 
 
 ^ Voluptatum, luxus et vanitatum quasi nem, non defendunt moderni Romanorum 
 
 omnium, etiam laicis indecentium, appa- pontifices, sed otFendunt, illiusque pulehri- 
 
 ratus pomposus, quern sensibus hominum tudinem, unitatem videlicet, non servant, 
 
 imprimunt. qui caeteris esse debent casti- sed focdant, dum zizanias et schismata 
 
 tatis et honestatis exemplum. Fol. 274. seminando, ipsius membra lacerant et ab 
 
 * Eorum plurimi ex humili plebe tra- invicem separant, Christi quoque veras 
 
 hentes natalia, dum ad statum pontifica- comites, paupertatem et humilitatem, dum 
 
 lem sumuntur, praesidatum saeculi nesci- non admittunt, sed excludunt penitus, se 
 
 ernes, quemadmodum neque divitias, in- sponsi ministros non ostendunt, sed potius 
 
 inimicos. Fol. 281. 
 
86 PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 As the pope did not comply with the invitation from Rome to return 
 back to that ]ilace, tlie Ghibelhne party trium plied there, and the em- 
 peror was received with acchimation. In connection with the party 
 opposed to the pope, the rigid Franciscans in particular, he repeated 
 the old trick which had been tried against the popes, by earlier empe- 
 rors, but which never was found to produce the slightest moral effect. 
 He caused a solemn assembly to be held in the year 1328, on the 
 place in front of St. Peter's church. Here John XXII. was accused 
 of being a heretic. The erroneous doctrines charged against him 
 were the assertion that Christ with his disciples held property in com- 
 mon, when in truth he ever loved poverty ; that the pope was for ar- 
 rogating to himself secular rule, contrary to Christ's words, '• Give to 
 Cajsar the things that are Caesar's," and " My kingdom is not of this 
 world." Sentence of deposition was pronounced against him. A 
 contemporary^ who entertained a sufficiently bad opinion of this pope, 
 describes the impression produced by this step, and probably accord- 
 ing to the truth, when he says, " The wise men in Rome were much 
 disturbed at this sentence, and the rest of the simple people did not 
 greatly exult over it." 2 Next, to win the favor of the Romans, a 
 law was enacted, 3 that every pope should reside in Rome, and not 
 leave the city, except during three months in the year ; and not re- 
 main out of it more than two days, and for that time only with the 
 permission of the Roman people. If, on absenting himself from 
 Rome, he did not, when invited by the Roman people to return, com- 
 ply, he should, after the invitation had been thrice repeated, be de- 
 posed. After this preparatory step, the emperor * caused a second 
 great assembly to be held on Ascension Day, the 12th of May, 1328, 
 in the place before St. Peter's church. Louis appeared in all his im- 
 perial insignia, surrounded by nobles and a vast multitude of men 
 and women filled the space around him. Then Pietro Corvaro, a 
 Franciscan, who by his strict life had won the reverence of the people, 
 was borne in procession under a baldochin. The emperor rose from 
 his seat. A bishop stepped forward and delivered a scurrilous dis- 
 course, applying the words in Acts 12 : 8, to the emperor Louis, com- 
 paring Louis with' the angel, and pope John with Herod. Next, a 
 bishop selected for the purpose, thrice put the question to the assembled 
 people whether they would have Peter of Corvaro for pope. Prompt- 
 ed by fear, they said yes ; though they would have preferred a Ro- 
 man. Corvaro was now regarded as lawful pope, and called himself, 
 as such, Nicholas Y. This certainly was a hasty and ill-judged trans- 
 
 ' The Florentine Giovanni Villani, in disciples, Your treasure is in heaven, and 
 
 his History of Florence. This writer, 1. 11, Lay not up for yourselves treasures on 
 
 c. 20, speaks of liis extortions and his ava- earth. Ma non si ricordava il huono hu- 
 
 ricc, savs that he used a <;reat deal of omo del vangelo di Christo, dieendo ii suoi 
 
 money, partly to carry on his war with the discipoli, etc. 
 
 emperor in Lomhardy, partly to maintain "^ Delia detta sentenzia i savi huomini di 
 
 his nephew, or rather son,' in state and Koma molto si turbarono, e I'altro seujpliee 
 
 splendor, — mantanere f;rande il suo ni- popolo ne feee grande festa. L. 10. c. 68. 
 
 pote, overo fiirliuolo, — who was legate at ' L. c. c. 70. 
 
 Lomhardy. The good man did not call to * L. c. c. 7J. 
 mind that Christ in the gospel says to his 
 
JOHN xxir. 37 
 
 action, bj which the emperor could only Injure his own cause. i He 
 ■was in no condition to follow up the step he had taken. He was 
 obliged to flee from Italy ; and Nicholas was finally compelled to beg 
 absolution of Pope John at Avignon, and to submit to his authority. 
 Louis saw that his power was on the wane. The papal ban had made 
 an impression on the secular and spiritual estates ; and his own unfa- 
 vorable relations induced the emperor who longed for quiet, to seek 
 reconciliation with the pope ; but the latter repelled all his advances, 
 and required unconditional submission. Already was Louis prepared 
 to purchase quiet at any price for himself and for Germany ; but the 
 estates of the empire were unwilling to expose the empire to such hu- 
 miliation, and took sides with the emperor against the pope. The lat- 
 ter had by his arbitrary proceedings in appointments to church offices, 
 aroused the displeasure of many. The archbishop of Trier, indignant 
 at a process lost at the Roman court in Avignon, had appealed to a 
 general council. In addition to this Pope John had stirred up a theo- 
 logical controversy, by which he lost much of his authority, and ex- 
 posed himself to severe humiliation. He had expressed an opinion, 
 contrary to the common persuasion, and hardly to be reconciled with 
 the prevailing mode of regarding the condition of the saints, namely 
 that the pious were not to attain to the Intuition of God, until after 
 the final judgment. Two preachers of the Franciscan order were 
 said to have embraced this doctrine at the University of Paris. It 
 became the occasion of disputes and violent commotions in that Uni- 
 versity. The king interfered. He convoked, on the fourth Sunday 
 of Advent, 1838, an assembly of prelates and theologians at the castle 
 of Vincennes, and laid before this council two questions ; whether the 
 holy souls in heaven would be enabled to behold God's essence before 
 the resurrection and before the general judgment ; and whether the 
 same intuition of the divine essence, which they now enjoyed, would 
 be renewed at the day of judgment, or a different one would follow.^ 
 The king himself explained, for the purpose of quieting all appre- 
 hension, that he was far from wishing to detract in any way whatever 
 from the honor of the pope. To save the honor and respect due to 
 the pope in this investigation it was remarked, that the supreme pon- 
 tiflf had thrown out all that he had said on this matter, not as his own 
 opinion, but as something problematical.^ As the result of these deli- 
 berations it was estabhshed, that the souls w^iich, on departing this 
 fife, were in such a condition as not to need purgation, and those which 
 had already passed through the fires of purgatory, were raised to the 
 immediate intuition of the divine essence ; this was one and the same 
 thing with the eternal life itself, and at the resurrection therefore, 
 
 * Villani describes the bad impression mai non li farono fedeli come prima. Ibid, 
 
 •which was made thereby on the minds of ^ Buhiei hist. Univ. Paris, torn, iv, f. 237. 
 
 the Komans. La buona gente di Roma •* Tlie Parisians say, in excuse of them- 
 
 molto si turba, parendo loro, che facesse selves : Quod multorum tide dignorum re- 
 
 contro a fede e santa Chiesa, e sapemo noi latione audivimus, quod quidquid in hac 
 
 di vero dalla sua gente medesima, che materia sanctitas sua dixit, non asserendo 
 
 quelli, ch'erano savi, parve loro ch'egli non sen opinando protulerit, sed soiuuimodo 
 
 facesse bene, e molti per la detta cagione recitaudo. 
 
 VOL. V. 4 
 
38 PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 nothing different woulfl follow. What the theological faculty here 
 pronounced orally, they were afterwards required by the king to state 
 in writing, lie transmitted this letter to the pope, admonishing him 
 to recant, and threatening him, as it is reported, in case of refu- 
 sal, with the faggot.' John thus became still more dependant on the 
 king ; to whom henceforth, as Villani relates, he no longer dared re- 
 fuse anything. Shortly before his death, in the year lo34, he put 
 forth a bull, in which he declared, that purified departed souls found 
 themselves in heaven or in paradise. In all he had said or written to 
 the contrary, he had only intended to present the matter as a fair 
 subject for disputation. All that he had said and written should be 
 'considered valid only so far as it harmonized with the cathulic faith, 
 the church and the Holy Scriptures. He submitted everything to tlie 
 better judgment of the church and of his successors. We thus ob- 
 serve from the reign of Boniface VIII. and onwards to this point of 
 time, a series of new and freer investigations called forth by the des- 
 potism of the popes. After Marsiiius of Padua, deserves to be espe- 
 cially noticed here William Occam, who by the invitation of the em- 
 peror wrote upon the points in dispute.^ In perfect agreement with 
 his whole skeptical method, he is cautious indeed about expressing any 
 decided opinion, and takes a safe position for himself by simply stating 
 the arguments first on the one side and then on the other. 3 But at 
 the same time, he leaves us at no loss to understand for which opinion 
 he is both able and willing to adduce the stronurest arguments. 
 
 Against the opinion that the pope possesses the " plenitude of 
 power " ^am in spiritaallbus quam in te/nporaUbus, it is established 
 that in such case the gospel in its relation to the law of Moses would not 
 be a law of liberty, but the law of an intolerable servitude ; a servi- 
 tude still more grievous than under the earlier dispensation. For, ac- 
 cording to this view, all would be servants of the pope, so that he might, 
 at pleasure, appoint kings and dispose of their realms ; so that he might 
 even impose rites and ceremonies upon the church like those in the 
 Old Testament; a position which to many appeared heretical. When 
 the Jews accused Christ of calling himself king, Pilate declared, that 
 he found no fault in him, since he well understood that Christ did not 
 
 ' Accordinj^ to the statement of D'Ailly, riculosum sensum trahere molirentur, tali 
 
 at the Council of Tans, in the year 1406. modo in eo conabor j)rocederc, ut ex mo- 
 
 Du Boulay, 1. c. s. 238. do loquendi non quis dicit, sed quid dici- 
 
 * As he says himself, in the Octo Ques- tur coacti attendere. mei ob odium, nisi ip- 
 
 tiones, near to the end, Goldasti mon. sos malitia vexaverit, inauditam nequa- 
 
 tom. ii, fol. 391: Ilhim autem dominum mi- quam neiiuitcr hmient veritatem : perso- 
 
 lii (juam phuimum venerandum, rpii hoc nam enim biviam reeitabo et saepius opin- 
 
 opus componere suis precibus me induxit, iones contrarias pertractabo, non solum 
 
 rogo et ol)secro, ut mihi indulgeat, si prae- eas, quibus adversor, sed etiam quibus 
 
 scriptas quaestioncs ad intentionem suam mcnte adhacreo, hoc tamcn nuHatenus 
 
 sim minime prosecutus, (juare eas discuti- exj)rimendo, intcrdum scienter pro eis ten- 
 
 endas voluit et mihi tradidit et porrexit. tarive sive sopbistice alle^ando in persona 
 
 ^ As he says himself, in the be;;inninfj, confirmatium aliorum, ut pro utraque par- 
 
 f. 314 : Quia sequens opusculum, ut desid- tc allegationilius intellectis veritatis sincc- 
 
 ero, ad manus forte perveniet aemulorum, rus amator purae orationis verura a false 
 
 qui odio stimulante etiam quae ipsis vera habeat disceruendi occasionera. 
 videmur (si diecremj damnare, vel ad pe- 
 
"WILLIAM OCCAM. 39 
 
 mean to call ]ilin=^elf a king in temporal things, but in quite another sense, 
 not seeming to him to stand in any contradiction with the authority of 
 Cnesar. It was only his fear of the threat of the Jews, to accuse hiiu 
 before Caesar, tliat induced him, against his better convictions, to con- 
 sent to pass sentence upon Christ. Hence many wonder, how it should 
 be that a man of the world, like the heathen Pilate, should gather 
 this from Christ's words, whilst many christians who would be regarded 
 even as teachers of the law, do not understand it. There seems to 
 be no other reason for it, but that they are blinded by wrong incli- 
 nations. 
 
 With regard to the power to bind and to loose bestowed on Peter, 
 the opinion of certain persons is cited, who held that this relates only 
 to sins ; and even in this relation, only to the power of bestowing the 
 sacrament of penance ; not that he was to have power to expunge 
 guilt, or impart grace, for this lies within the power of God alone ; 
 but only to declare men discharged in the view of the church, and to 
 impose on them some act of satisfaction in this world ; not to exercise 
 any coercive jurisdiction. It is clearly seen and affirmed, that al- 
 though under the Old Testament economy the priestly power was 
 placed above the royal, yet this was not the case, under the New Tes- 
 tament ; because under this, a spiritual authority only is bestowed on 
 the clergy.^ We perceive already, in this distinguishing of the differ- 
 ence between Old and New Testament points of view the preparatory- 
 step to a position which would involve the overthrow of the churchly 
 theocratical system of the middle ages. Could we, it is said, be justi- 
 fied in applying all the Old Testament relations to the New Testament 
 evolution, we should in that case be led to the heretical doctrine of 
 the permanent validity of the Mosaic law.- All that the pope holds in 
 possession beyond what is necessary for his temporal support, all that 
 belongs to the worldly pomp and magnificence wdth which he is at pre- 
 sent environed,^ he either obtained from the liberality of emperors, 
 kings and other believers, or has tyranically arrogated to himself in a 
 way contrary to God's will, to reason and to good manners. In rela- 
 tion, therefore, to that which he lawfully possessed, he was not suc- 
 cessor of Peter, but of Constantino and other emperors, of kings and 
 other believers, who bestowed these things on the pope ; but in no 
 such way as conferred on him an unlimited right of property in all 
 this ; for he was obligated, on peril of his salvation, to administer all 
 that had been bestowed over and above what was necessary for his 
 own support, according to the will and purpose of the donors. And 
 if he administered it otherwise, he was guilty of a breach of trust, 
 
 ^ Fol. 327 : Esto, quod in veteri lege reticalis est, quia sequitur ex ipsa, quod 
 
 pontiiicalis auctoritas praelata fuisset eti- circumcisionem, discretionem ciboruiu et 
 
 am iu teinporalibus digiiitati regali, non alia caerimonalia et jmlicialia veteris le- 
 
 tameu esset praefereuda in nova lege : gis deberet etiam imitari. Ibid, 
 
 quia au-ctoritas poutiticalis in nova lege ^ Omnia, quae ultra ilia, quae sibi neces- 
 
 spirirualior est et magis a terrenis negotiis saria sunt, possidet, sc. eivitates, castra, 
 
 eloiigata, quam fuerit auctoritas pontitica- amplas possessioues et superabundantes, et 
 
 lis in veteri lege, queuuulmodum lex nova jurisdictionem temporalem quaaicunque, 
 
 magis est spiritualis, quam lex vetus. sicut et omnem gloriam mundanam, qua 
 
 ^ iiespoudetur, quod ista allegatio hae- papa nunc rutilat. 
 
40 PAPACY AXD CHURCH CONSTITUTION". 
 
 and was bound to make restitution.^ The sentences passed bj the 
 pope on the emperor Louis were represented as null and void, because 
 the pope was to be regarded as a . heretic ; and here it is remarked, 
 *' When the power or will of the pope becomes matter of debate, 
 christians in these days take no trouble to ascertain for themselves 
 what Christ taught, or what the Apostles or the fathers have thought 
 on this subject, though it be ever so plain and manifest. But what- 
 ever may happen to please the pope, that they adopt, prompted by 
 fear, or favor, or fleshly desires ; and try to wrest those passages of 
 Scripture which assert the contrary into some agreement with the 
 fables which they have dreamed.^ They transfer to the pope the 
 honor which is due to God alone ; and, in contradiction with the 
 Apostle Paul, make christian faith to consist in the wisdom, or rather 
 in the will of the pope, not in that which holy Scripture teacheth."3 
 Then it was shown that the excuses commonly offered with a view to 
 exculpate the pope from the charge of heresy were of no force. The 
 pope was said to have held forth dogmas, declared to be heretical, 
 only historically or in the way of disputation. On the contrary, it 
 w^as maintained, that were the matter rightly mquired into, it might 
 be clearlv established, that he had be vend all doubt set these thin;!:3 
 forth as positive assertions. Neither could he be exculpated on the 
 ground that he had at the end of his life recanted whatever he had 
 wrongly asserted ; for this recantation was a conditional one, such as 
 any heretic, however obstinate, might offer. And even supposing this 
 might suthce to excuse him, then he should still be regarded as having 
 been a heretic in the time preceding this recantation.^ The maxim 
 of Augustine, " Ego vero evangelio non crederem, nisi me catholicae 
 ecclesiae commoveret auctoritas," is in his Dialogue, ^ thus explained: 
 By the ecclesia we are here to understand the collective multitude 
 of all the faithful from the times of the prophets and apostles down 
 to the present ; to which collective body belongs also the founder of 
 the gospel dispensation ; and the part is greater than the whole. ^ In 
 the second book, the proofs are arrayed in defence of the position that 
 no doctrine incapable of being proved from holy Scripture, was to be 
 acknowledged as catholic and necessary to salvation ; neither the 
 church nor the pope could make new articles of faith. 
 
 The pope who came after John XXII. , Benedict XII., is said to have 
 been a quite diiierent man from his predecessor. He was decidedly 
 opposed to nepotism. His relatives could get nothing from him. He 
 
 ' Fol. .385. ^ Fulem Christianam contra apostolura 
 
 * Ul)i du potcstate vol ctiam de volun- in sapicntia vel potius voluiitate paj)ae, 
 
 tate pajtae tit seriiiu, non curaiit Cliristiaiii non voluntatc scripturac pouentcs. Ibid, 
 
 scire his dicl)us. quid Cliristus docuit, nee "• Fol. 390. 
 
 quod apostoli seiiserunt ct saiicti jjatres, ^ Between Scholar and Teacher, 
 
 quamvis ratione manit'esta hoc doceretur ; ^ Non quia de evangelio sit a[i<jualiter 
 
 Kcd quod placet papae, timore vel amore dubitandum, sed quia totum majus est sua 
 
 aut cupiditate carnis amplectuntur, ct ad i)arte. Kcclesia ergo, (juae niajoris aucto- 
 
 falnilas, cpuis somniaverunt, scripturas et ritatis est, quani evangelista, est ilia eecle- 
 
 proj^hctias student traherc repugnantes, et sia, cujus auctor evangelii pars esse agno- 
 
 eie ad Papain transferre vidcntur honoriti- scitur. Lib. 1, c. 4, Goldast. 1. 1, fol. 402. 
 centiani creatoris. Fol. 390. 
 
BENEDICT XII. 41 
 
 took great pains to fill the vacant sees with pious and able men ; he 
 *preferred rather to let vacancies remain for a long time unoccupied, 
 than to fill them with worthless incumbents. He was a rigid censor 
 of the degenerate clergy and monks : he sought in particular to reform 
 the monastic orders. But there are also other reports about him, differ- 
 ing widely from all this. He is described as a harsh, covetous man, 
 given to immoderate drinking, the author of the saying : Bibamus pa- 
 paliter. Yet it may be questioned, whether the severity of this pope 
 as a reformer so detrimental to the interests of many may not have 
 been the occasion of reports so injurious to his reputation.^ The 
 emperor Louis offered his hand again to this pope, for peace ; and the 
 latter would gladly have accepted it ; but he found it impossible to 
 break loose from his dependance on the French interest. 
 
 Benedict again was succeeded, in the year 1343, by a man of 
 quite opposite character ; a Frenchman, of an altogether worldly tem- 
 per, devoid of all interest in religion, having a bad reputation as to his 
 morals, more devoted to worldly politics than to the aflairs of religion, 
 and in his politics wholly dependant on the French court. This was 
 Clement VI.^ To the Romans he gave an indemnification for what 
 they had lost by the long absence of the popes, by reducing to fifty 
 years the centennial jubilee which had proved a source of so much 
 profit to them under Boniface YIII. This was done by the famous 
 constitution Unigenitus, which he published in the year 1349.3 The 
 pope assigned as a reason for it the sacredness of the number fifty 
 according to the Old Testament, a number according to which also 
 followed the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. The doctrine of indul- 
 gence was here expounded conformably to the determinations already 
 given to it, that Christ had gained for his church a treasure, and had 
 committed it to her keeping, and more particularly to the successors 
 of the Apostle Peter, to whom he had entrusted the guidance of the 
 church. To this had been added the merits of Mary and of all the elect. 
 There was no fear that such a treasure could ever be diminished ; be- 
 cause the merits of Christ were infinite, and because the greater the 
 number who should be incited by the appropriation of this treasure to 
 strive after righteousness, the more would be added to it. The empe- 
 ror Louis renewed his negotiations with this pope, and he was ready 
 
 * Thus John of Winterthur puts both nales fore deceptores sui credebat. Ordi- 
 
 together, fol. 39, describing him as a re- nes mendicantiuin supra modum exosos 
 
 former of monachism and potator vini habebat. — Huic maxime insitum cordi fuit, 
 
 permaximus. The same thing appears in clericos et religiosorum ordinum professo- 
 
 the 8 vita in Baluz pap. Aven. t. I, Paris, res et status reformare et, ut dicatur verius, 
 
 1693, f. 240, where Ave phiinly see that it infirmare. The same writer also cites the 
 
 was just the severity of the pope as a re- by-word which proceeded from him. 
 
 former which provoked and occasioned the ^ In the Chronicle of Albert of Stras- 
 
 accusations laid against him. The censures burg, it is said of him : Hie ab antecesso- 
 
 are such as miglit possibly have been called ris sui moribus multum distans, mulierum, 
 
 forth by qualities which really deserved honorum et potentiae cupidus, curiam de 
 
 praise. Hie papa avarus, durus et tenax, simonia diifamans, ipse Francus Franco 
 
 in conferendis gratiis remissus, tardus et ferventer adhaesit. Urctis. German, his- 
 
 negligens in providendo statum ecclesia- toric. post Henric. IV. pars alt. Francof. 
 
 rum supi-a modum fuit, et in excusatione 1.585, fol. 133. 
 
 duritiae suae paucos ad haec dignos et suf- •' Printed in Kaynaldi, Annales, at the 
 
 ficientes dicebat. Omnes dominos cardi- year 1349. § 11. 
 
 4* . ■ 
 
42 PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 to do anTtliing that might be required of him to pnrch.ase peace. But 
 the pope who cared nothing for the distracted condition of the Germaif 
 people, who looked at nothing but his own worldly interests, to which 
 everything else was sacrificed, contrived purposely to have the matter 
 put off without coming to any agreement ; for the imperial dignity was 
 to be transferred to another person, related to the royal family of 
 France, and educated to principles of dependance on the papacy. 
 This was Prince Charles of Bohemia, afterwards the emperor Charles 
 IV. In Germany, the pope's measures called forth violent reactions 
 in favor of freedom, movements of the city communities devoted to 
 the emperor, who were unwilling to have an emperor imposed upon 
 them by the arbitrary will of the pope — against those ecclesiastics and 
 monks, who strictly observed the papal interdict. Thus, for example, 
 the clergy of Constance were twice banished, because they refused to 
 hold divine service, ^ Many monks in different districts of Germany 
 were for the same reason driven away, and the people shouted after 
 them as they left, that it would be a long time before they came back 
 again. When four years afterwards they showed an inclination to 
 obey the emperor, and to recommence the public worship of God, they 
 still were not permitted to return. 
 
 The distractions which grew out of these divisions, added to the de- 
 vastations occasioned by that desolating scourge, the black plague, had 
 a great influence upon the religious tone of feeling. The more se- 
 riously disposed were recalled from the conflict of the passions and 
 the schisms of the world without, were led to enter into the depths of 
 their own being, to collect their thoughts to God and before Him — 
 the inward self-collection of mvsticism among a class of monks and 
 laymen who united to form pious communities, calling themselves 
 Friends of God in South Germany, the countries on the Rhine, France, 
 Swabia and Alsace. John of Winterthur laments that the emperor 
 and pope should sacrifice the general weal to their private passions 
 and personal interests ;2 that they should have God and the welfare of 
 the church and state so little before their eyes, and seek only their 
 own. lie ascribes all this to the secularization of the church ; and 
 takin^T up the ancient le;i;end alrcadv alluded to, he says : On the be- 
 stowment of that gift of the emperor Constantine to the Roman 
 bishop Silvester, rightly was the voice heard from heaven, saying, 
 To-day a cup of poison is poured upon the church. In the events 
 of the time he beholds the most striking evidence of the truth of 
 these words. The confounding together of things spiritual and secu- 
 lar, the love of earthly things reigning supreme in the church, ap- 
 pear to him the true source of all the then existing schisms and 
 "wars.3 What the apostle Paul said of the perils of the last times, 
 seems to him to be already passing into fulfilment. 
 
 * John of Winterthur, at the year 1343, tarn oculis mentis quam carnis, inio expe* 
 
 f, 60. riiniir iiialis (juotidianis j^raviter et impor- 
 
 ^ Fol. 69. taliilitt-r, jacturain et dispcudia bonorum, 
 
 ^ After the citation of tliosc words : corporum, aiiiinanim et reruin propter hoc 
 
 Quod hodierna die luce clarius ceruimus sustiueudo. Troprie vencuum ecclesiae in- 
 
CLEMENT Vr. 43 
 
 The emperor ordered fasts and penitential processions, in which he 
 feealously took part himself to im;)lore the Alini;^hty, that by the outpour- 
 ing of his Holy Spirit, he would bring peace to the church. But the 
 pope, having once made up his mind,tliat another man should be emperor, 
 prescribed to Louis conditions so severe, that the princes wouM not 
 consent to an humiHation of the emperor, so derogatory to the honor 
 of the empire. The quarrels about tlie observance of the interdict 
 still went on in Germany, as well as tlie schism that grew out of it. 
 Many ecclesiastics who were sincerely desirous of holding divine wor- 
 ship again in places that had been laid under the interdict, took ad- 
 vantage of the pope's avarice, and purchased absolution at the price 
 of a florin.' John of Winterthur complains bitterly of the corruption 
 of the church in relating this: '' what a deplorable and abominable 
 schism and disgrace has fallen upon the church in these times ! The 
 words of the gospel — Freely ye have received, and freely give, 
 seem to have been spoken in vain." This state of things lasted 
 until the emperor's death in the year 1347. 
 
 It was now required that homage should be paid throughout Ger- 
 many to Charles IV. as the emperor acknowledged by the pope. Yet 
 the manner in which it was attempted to carry this out provoked vio- 
 lent opposition of various kinds. The German spirit revolted more 
 and more against the Roman yoke. A more general consciousness 
 ■was awakened of the corruption of the church, and longing for its puri- 
 fication. The hard conditions which the pope saw fit to require in 
 bestowing absolution on those who had been placed under the ban on 
 account of their connection with the emperor Louis, contributed still 
 more to excite the minds of numbers who still cherished an affection- 
 ate remembrance of the unfortunate emperor, and who were disgusted 
 with the yoke of Roman bondage. Men were required to swear, that 
 they would renounce their old errors, consider the emperor Louis as 
 excommunicated, never attribute to an emperor the power of deposing 
 the pope, never acknowledge any man to be emperor, save the one 
 nominateti or confirmed by the pope. These demands were in several 
 districts violently resisted, and called forth the most decided reactions of 
 a spirit in favor of freedom. In many places, in Basle for example, it 
 was found necessary to yield to the fierce clamors of the people, and 
 to suspend the interdict without farther ado. Here, too, the clergy 
 had an opportunity presented to them for gratifying their avarice. 
 The consecration of burial places, supposed to have been profaned, 
 might now be converted into a means of gain. From forty to sixty 
 florins were demanded as the price for this service. The conscious- 
 ness of the corruption of the church now generally awakened, and the 
 temper of the people who earnestly longed for its regeneration, ex- 
 pressed themselves in a legend which started up afresh and spread 
 
 fusum a voce mcmorata dicitur, quia ilia regnis et terrcnis bonis seu possessionibus 
 
 liberalis datio Constantinifomes et occasio, tempOralibus capiendis exstitit. 
 quamquam bono zelo fecerit, schismatis ' Jobn of Winterthur, at the year 1345, 
 
 praelibati, contentionum, pvaeliorum, ho- fol. 78 : Hujusmodi autem absolutio pro 
 
 mocidiorum, scandalorum innumerabiliuni uno floi'eno facillime obtinebatur. 
 a capitibus sacerdotum promotorum, pro 
 
44 PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTIONS'. 
 
 far and wide, Importing that the emperor Frederic II. was soon to 
 arise from the dead to execute with his mi,ii;hty arm a sentence of re- 
 tributive justice on the corrupt clergv, and to restore the church in 
 renovated splendor. John of Winterthur, who relates the story, com- 
 pares this expectation with that of the Jews who were looking for the 
 Messiah to restore their place and nation. The ten years' reign of 
 Innocent VI. extending to 1362, passed away in tranquillity. He 
 again was favorably distinguished among the popes of Avignon, for 
 the disposition he manifested to promote the welfare of the church, 
 and to frown on growing abuses. He died in the year 1362, and 
 was succeeded by Urban V. Urban received more and more press- 
 ing invitations to come up to the help of the deeply depressed Roman 
 church in Italy. Petrarch, who had always borne emphatic testi- 
 mony against the corruption of the papal court at Avignon, addressed 
 to this pope' a letter, invalidating all the scruples against the re-con- 
 veyance of the papacy to Rome, and calling upon him in the strong- 
 est language, to return to the ancient seat of the pontiffs. He tried 
 to convince the cardinals, men devoted to their pleasures, that in Italy 
 too, a land so highly blessed by nature, nothing would be found wanting ; 
 and that they who felt it impossible to give up the wines of South- 
 ern France, needed not after all, to be much afraid of the exchange. He 
 asked the cardinals, whether they had rather be buried in Avignon 
 among the worst sinners in the world, than in Rome, among saints and 
 martyrs. At length, in the year 1367, Urban made an attempt to return ; 
 and he was received in Rome with great demonstrations of joy. But the 
 French cardinals soon pined again after the old seat of their pleasures, 
 and Urban was prevailed upon to yield to their wishes. He repaired once 
 more, in loTO, to Avignon, where he died on the very year of his return. 
 His successor was cardinal Roger, a celebrated Jurist and Canonist, 
 called Gregory XI. Before he became pope, he had expressed himself 
 strongly in favor of transporting the papal court back to Rome. Both 
 Catharine of Siena, then held in high veneration as a saint, and Bri- 
 gitta of Sweden, called upon him in the most urgent manner to accom- 
 plish this object. A bishop, whom he reprimanded for living away from 
 his see, retorted upon him, by asking why he did not do better then him- 
 self. In the year 1376, he returned back with a part of the car- 
 dinals to Rome. He shortly after died in the year 1378. 
 
 We might predict beforehand that the death of this pope would be 
 followed by the most violent commotions. The Roman people, noto- 
 rious for their turbulent spirit, were thoroughly determined that ano- 
 ther Frenchman should not be pope, that no one should be chosen but 
 an Italian, and an Italian of whom it might reasonably be expected 
 that he would take up his residence in Rome. Among the cardinals 
 themselves, too, a great schism could not fail to arise between those 
 of Italian and those of French descent. The latter longed to get 
 back to Avignon, or if they were still there, were not inclined to leave 
 France, and it was not to be expected that they would consent to 
 choose an Itahan. But neither could the Italian cardinals be easily 
 
 ' Epp. scnil. 1. 7, 1. Oper. cd. Basil, p. 811. 
 
URBAN V. — GREGORY XI. 45 
 
 iiirluced to consent to the choice of a Frenchmnn. As it was not 
 difficult to foresee the disturbances which would be li]:ely to inter- 
 rupt the election of a new pope, Grepijor}'- XI. had, previous to his 
 death, issued a bull suspending:; the ordinances then in f^rce nOatin'^ 
 to the form of the papal election, and decreein^^ that the cardinals 
 should be at liberty, in case of need, to meet for this election in 
 Bome place without the walls of Rome, and to proceed directly with- 
 out waiting for their absent colleagues, to the choice of a pope, and 
 that he who had the majority of votes should immediately enter upon 
 his office. But it was not so easv to carry this bull into effect. For 
 w^liat could induce the turbulent Roman people to permit the cardinals 
 to leave Rome for the express purpose of proceeding to the election 
 in another place less exposed to the influences which the Romans 
 would be very glad to exercise. 
 
 As it regards the events that followed, to determine the course 
 which they actually took, belongs among the most difficult problems 
 of historical criticism. The reports bear on their very face the stamp 
 of opposite party-interests ; on the one side an interest to magnify the 
 dangers which the cardinals imagined they had reason to apprehend from 
 the menacing posture of the Roman people, with a view to represent the 
 election that had taken place under such influences as forced, and 
 therefore null and void ; on the other side, an interest to keep out of 
 sight everything that implied constraint, with a view to establish tlie 
 validity of the election as one altogether regular. We have good 
 cause, no doubt, to look upon both these classes of reports as lia- 
 ble, for diffbrent reasons, to suspicion, and to be on our guard against 
 exaggerations on one side as well as on the other. Bv abstractino^ 
 a little from both sides, we shall be most likely to succeed in mak- 
 ing some approximation towards the truth. It may readily be con- 
 ceived that the uneasy Romans would not be disposed to remain 
 quiet, and patiently await the issue of the election ; that desperately 
 opposed as they were to the choice of a Frenchman, they would do 
 all they could by playing upon the fears of the cardinals, to prevent them 
 from making such a choice ; nor would it probably have required a 
 very great effort, to produce the necessary degree of terror in the 
 enervated and effeminate body of men of whom we are speaking, to 
 excite in them that fear of death, which in the customary phraseology 
 of those times was called a Metus qui cadlt etiam in constanteni viram. 
 But from this it does not follow, that the pope's election was a forced 
 one, a sham election, even though it may have been true that the car- 
 dinals under different influences, would have made a different choice. 
 We should endeavor to present distinctly before us the relations then 
 existing among the cardinals in order to understand the reasons wliich 
 really led to the choice that was made. There were twenty-three car- 
 dinals, of whom seventeen were French. Six of these had remained 
 behind in Avignon. Now the clamor of the Romans, demanding that 
 a Roman, or at least an Italian should be pope,- produced, doubtless, 
 
 ' Romano lo volemo o almanco Italia- party, Boulay hist, univers. Paris t. IV. 
 no, according to the report of the French f. 470. 
 
46 PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 a not unimportant impression on the French cariVmals constituting; the 
 majoritv. But in addition to this, a coalition party had been form- 
 ed ; a circumstance which, as often happens, brought about a result 
 that under other circumstances was not to be expected ; but a result 
 too, which, f u' the very reason that it had proceeded from nothing but 
 such a coalition, might easily excite discontent. Among the French 
 themselves, there were two ])arties, one which was determined to havo 
 a pope from the province of Limoisin, another which protested against 
 such a choice. Now the latter, merely from opposition to the former, 
 might prefer to go with the Italians in electing an Italian pope. The 
 individual on whom they united was a man to whom no great impor- 
 tance was attached by any body ; a man who until this time had been 
 known only for his rigid ascetic bent, who had occupied himself with 
 nothing but the administration of his episcopal office — a man from 
 whom no party felt that it had anything to fear. This was archbishop 
 Pri'niano of fcari, a Neapolitan, who took t]\e name of Urban VI. 
 The cardinals, in their circular letters, announced this choice as an un- 
 doubtedly regular one ; and they gave notice of it to their absent, col- 
 leacirues at Avignon. But no great stress, we must allow, is to be 
 laid on the declarations of a college, composed of so many heartless 
 and utterly corrupt men. While they thus expressed themselves pub- 
 licly, one of the French cardinals wrote secretly to the French king 
 that no declaration which they might make, whilst they remained in 
 Rome, was to be relied upon ; for they were governed by the fear of 
 the Roman people.^ Yet Urban YI. would probably, by a wise and 
 prudent course of conduct, have been able to secure peace and unani- 
 nlity. But he ruined everything, by the haughty bearing which he 
 assumed, and by his indiscreet and passionate behavior. The cardi- 
 nals found him to be an entirely diSferent man from what they had 
 expected. They were the more exasperated against him on this ac- 
 count ; and many, who for other reasons had been unwilling to recog- 
 nize an Italian, now only looked about for an opportunity to get rid 
 of him. The disaftected complained of the hot season of the year, 
 as a pretext for leaving Rome. They betook themselves to Anag- 
 ni. There, before the archbishop of Aries, chamberlain of the Ro- 
 man church, they solemnly protested against the validity of Urban's 
 election. They declared it to have been made under constraint. In a 
 circular letter they declared it to have been their expectation that Urban 
 himself, knowing the invalidity of his election, would never think of call- 
 ing himself pope. They declared him, therefore, to be a disturber of the 
 peace of the church, a perjured man, a destroyer of Christendom ; 
 and they forbade obedience to him as pope, under penalty of the ban. 
 Next, they repaired to a place of security, to Ferredi, for the purpose 
 of proceeding to a new election, when three Italians joined themselves 
 to the French cardinals. At this election they assuredly did not di- 
 rect their attention to any of the qualifications, spiritual or clerical, 
 
 ' Tims relates the then Vioe-Chancellor dc Ilcssia, in liis Dialogue de Schismate, 
 of the University of Paris, Master Henry, as Boulay reports iu his hist. Uuivcrs. i*a- 
 of Langenstein in Ilessia, called lleuricus ris, t. lY. f. 463. 
 
BEGINNINGS OF THE SCHISM IN THE CHURCHES. 47 
 
 requisite for such an office ; but they looked about only for a man 
 -vvho could best serve their purposes, and made choice of one whose 
 chief title to importance was his relationship to y^rincely families, 
 and the large stretch of his conscience.^ Tliis was the Cardinal bish- 
 op Robert of Cambray, who named himself pope Clement VII. 
 
 This was the beginniu!^ of the forty years' schism in the Western 
 church, one of the most important of the links in the chain of events, 
 which contributed to the overthrow of the papal absolutism of the mid- 
 dle age, and to prepare for the great reaction of the christian mind 
 which took place in the sixteenth century. We have, indeed, seen 
 already in earher times schisms occasioned by the election of a pope ; 
 these, however, were of no long duration ; nor did they lead to any 
 such deeply cut division in the church. The way in which this schism 
 arose is evidence in itself of the great corruption of the cardinals ; 
 and as the corruption of a part is ever closely connected with some 
 defect of the whole, and presents a good reason for inferring a com- 
 mon guilt ; so it was in the present case with regard to the gene- 
 ral condition of the church. If, already, during the residence of the 
 popes at Avignon, the abuses in the church had spread so widely, 
 and risen to so enormous a pitch, yet all became still worse during 
 this schism and by means of it. As the dominion of each of the 
 two popes was circumscribed in its province, and as each must main- 
 tain his state in contending with the other, so they were forced to resort 
 to still greater extortions than had ever been practised, to the com- 
 plete prostration of the church. Simony, and the mischief of in- 
 dulgences, arbitrary will in selecting candidates for ecclesiastical 
 offices, got more and more the upper hand. But it seems to have 
 been necessary that the corruption of the church should reach its 
 highest point, in order to make every one sensible of it, and to 
 awaken a more general attention to the causes of so great an evil. 
 An examination free from all bias would undoubtedly have led to the 
 conclusion that Urban's election was regularly conducted ; and in the 
 reasons brought forward to prove the contrary it is impossible not to 
 see a great deal that is sophistical. But as national party interest 
 soon mixed itself in with this inquiry, while Urban VI. did everything 
 on his part^ to excite the prejudices of men against him, so there 
 might be much sharp fighting on both sides, with the weapons of that 
 sort of polemical warfare, which is waged in behalf of opposite incli- 
 nations ; and as important men were to be seen on both sides, it would 
 be found so much the more difficult for those who were governed only 
 by the authority of names, to decide who was true pope. And when 
 men had continued for a long time to be in doubt as to who was the 
 true pope, the faith in the necessity of one visible head would necessarily 
 become unsettled. It was impossible to put an end to the mischievous 
 schism so long as the traditional forms and principles of ecclesiastical 
 laws were tenaciously adhered to. It was necessary to recognize a 
 trijuual still higher even than the pope, in order at length to bring the 
 
 ' L ir;::ic conscientiac, as Thcodoric of Rome, calls it, in his work de schismate 
 Niciu then the pope's chainberlaiu in lib. 1, cap. 10. 
 
48 PAPACY AXD CHURCH COXSTITUTION. 
 
 contests bet\Yeen the conflicting parties to a decision. Accordingly it 
 was necessary to turn away from })apal absolutism to the principles of 
 the ancient and freer ecclesiastical law. But it was necessarv also 
 that it should be clearly understood, that the schism was not the only, 
 nor yet the principal evil of the church. It was necessary in fine to 
 recognize in all this only a symptom of a still more deeply lying cor- 
 ruption. It was necessary to come to this, to be conscious that the 
 schism itself was an admonition from God calling upon men to examine 
 into the causes of the corruption of the church, and to begin to 
 prepare the way for its regeneration. The question was whether by 
 the united efforts of the most important forces so deep-rooted an evil 
 of the church could be healed, or whether all these efforts would 
 prove fruitless, and thus serve only to fix deeper the conviction that 
 the church needed a far different and more radical cure. Under 
 these more favorable circumstances, it became possible for that party 
 so long suppressed, which in contending for the liberties of the na- 
 tional churches, and the independence of the episcopal system, had 
 first stood forth to oppose the growth and formation of papal absolut- 
 ism, once more to stand up in the struggle with that absolutism 
 "which now formed the nucleus for all the corruptions of the church. 
 This freer tendency had its seat more particularly in France, and in this 
 country it had continued to maintain the struggle for the longest time. 
 It was from this country more particularly, therefore, that a reaction 
 of this sort against the mediieval papacy now proceeded again. The 
 theologians of the University of Paris, a body of men whose voice 
 had the most important influence in all affairs of general moment, were 
 the most prominent representatives and organs of the same. Whilst, 
 however, this party confined itself simply to the reform of the church 
 constitution, holding fast to. the foundation of the churchly theocrat- 
 ical system, and seeking only to clear away from it the rubbish of 
 later additions, another was gradually developing itself, inclined to a 
 more thorough and radical species of reform, hostile to this conserva- 
 tive element, a party which attacked the reigning system at its very 
 foundation, demandin;:; a regeneration of the church on the basis of 
 the original christian principles, foretokening the renovated and chris- 
 tian spirit, which afterwards broke triumphantly forth in the German 
 Ilcformation. Of this the great movements began in Englarid and 
 Bohemia ; Wickliff'and lluss were the representatives of it ; and had it 
 not been for that schism within the church, that enfeeblement of the pa- 
 pal power brought about by its partition, neither could these movements 
 have arisen, and developed themselves to the extent which they did.i 
 The new pope Clement rei)aired once more to Avignon, and sought 
 to gain over to his side the voice of France. Not till after a careful 
 exammatiun of the claims of the two popes before an assembly of the 
 Gallic church held at Vmcennes, did king Charles, with the whole 
 church, declare in favor of Clement. The LJniversity of Paris was in- 
 
 ' Henry of Ilcssia in his epistola pacis; cos et fortitudo militura apuJ Germanos. 
 Sic orUein divi.suin, ut siipicntia fulgeat Boulaeus IV. f. 576. 
 apud Gallicos, auruiu abuudct apud Itali- 
 
SCHISM OF THE CHURCH (UNIVERSITY OF PARIS.) 49 
 
 clined at first to acknowledge neither of the two individuals wlio had 
 been elected, but declaring itself neutral to propose a general council 
 which should investigate the whole affair and bring it to a decision. 
 It was predicted that unless this were done, the seeds of schism 
 would every day become more widely disseminated. It is true, the 
 University yielded on the whole to the decisions of the council of 
 Vincennes, and to the invitation of the king, who was desirous of 
 having the concurrence of the university in those decisions ; yet a 
 minority still held fiist to their previous opinions. The whole churcli 
 was divided into three parties, the Urbanists, Clementines, and neutrals 
 or indifferents. At Paris, Henry of Hessia stood at the head of the 
 latter party. He composed, under the title of Epistola pacis, a work 
 in the form of a dialogue, between an Urbanist and Clementist each 
 of whom presents the arguments of his own party. After having placed 
 the arguments of these parties one against the other, he sums up Avith 
 the following declaration : " There is no other means of restoring on 
 a solid basis the peace of the church but the meeting of all the pre- 
 lates in a general council. Without this, the minds of men, even 
 though one of the two popes should obtain the ascendancy, could not 
 be set at rest for any great length of time. The same doubts would 
 arise again about the succession of one or the other of them.i 
 
 In the year 1381, the assembled heads of the University of Paris 
 came to the resolution that it was best to insist upon the calling of a 
 general council for the purpose of healing the schism, and that 
 they would use their utmost endeavors to prevail upon the princes and 
 prelates to resort to this method. 2 The first to lift up his voice for the 
 calling of a general council as the only sure means of restoring peace 
 to the church, was the above-mentioned Henry of Langenstein in Hes- 
 sia, professor of theology at Paris, in his " Counsel of Peace," a work 
 composed by him in the year 1381.3 
 
 He looks upon the evils that had sprung out of this schism as an 
 admonition from God, designed to bring men to a consciousness of the 
 corruption of the church, and to lead them to seek earnestly after the 
 necessary reform.'* He thus addresses the princes and prelates ; 
 "Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, repent and do 
 works meet for repentance for the evils and sins which have been the 
 cause of this schism.'" He notices the objections, which on the po- 
 sition held by the advocates of the old papal absolutism were raised 
 against the assembling of a general council, and endeavors to invalidate 
 them, first by assuming the position itself from which these objections 
 proceeded, as his point of departure, and then by opposing to it a higher 
 christian position. We see in France the same principles employed in 
 reference to civil and to ecclesiastical law. As the civilians proceeded 
 
 ' Extract from tlie work in Bulaeus. ^ Consilium pacis. 
 The end f. 578 : Absque cujus conventu * C. 3. Hanc tribulationem a Deo non 
 credo vix unquam posse ad plenum eorda gratis pernnssam, sed in necessariam op- 
 quietari omnium. portunamque ecclesiae reformationem fiua- 
 
 "■* This, Henry of Hessia cites in his Con- liter convei'tendam. 
 silium pacis c.'l3, in Hermann Yonder 
 Hardt Cone. Const, t. II, f. 33. 
 
 VOL. V. 5 
 
50 PAPACY AND CnURCn COXSTITUTION. 
 
 on the as=;umption, that the weal of the state at large was the highest 
 law, to wliich the kingV power itself must be subservient, and attri- 
 buted to the collective b )dv the right to revolt against and depose a 
 ruler Avho, by the abuse of his power, should act contrary to the 
 well-being of the wliole, so the opponents of papal absolutism as- 
 cribed the same power to the church at large in relation to bad 
 popes. And this power was to be exercised precisely by a gene- 
 ral council, which represented the whole church. Such a council, 
 which mii^ht be convoked even by the collective body of cardinals, 
 must derive its authority directly from Christ himself, the eternal and 
 immutable Head of the churcli, and pass its resolutions in his name. 
 Christ, the author regards as the supreme, the only unconditionally ne- 
 cessary Head of the church, standing with it in indissoluble union ; 
 the head from which the church, his ravstical body, derives incessantly 
 the movement and spirit of life. Hence she cannot err, nor as a 
 whole be stained with any mortal sin. To the complete organism of 
 the church, should also belong, it is true, the papacy, as a caput secun- 
 dariiau. Yet in case of a vacancy in the papal chair, or of doubt as to 
 what person was true pope, the absence of that " secondary head " 
 must admit of being supplied by Christ as the Head inseparable from 
 the church. To the gift of Constantine the author traces, in great 
 part, the corruption of the church ; though he acknowledges that it 
 may have been a necessary or salutary thing for the church at a 
 certain stage of its progress. For by means of it she became over- 
 laden with honor, power and wealth ; and hence it came about that so 
 many, without distinction, foolish and wise, boys and old men, bad and 
 good, by right and by wrong, eagerly sought after the fat benefices of 
 the church. He suggests many single projects of reform, which should be 
 discussed by the general council. Among these belongs the renewal of 
 the provincial synods, to be biennially convened : the doing away with 
 the superfluous pomp of the prelates and cardinals, which was so great, 
 as to lead them sometimes to forget they were men ; some provision 
 against the bad management of patronage and appointments to eccle- 
 siastical offices. He felt it necessary to complain that many but mod- 
 erately educated persons held five, six or eight benefices, though not 
 worthy of holding even one. " See to it," says he, " whether horses, 
 hounds, falcons and the superfluous domestics of the clergy may not 
 at the ])resent time, far more than the christian poor, be eating up the 
 heritage of the church." 
 
 Urban VI. was, at the beginning, the pope recognized in the major- 
 ity of the kingdoms. The places of those cardinals who had aban- 
 doned him, he supplied by new appointments. But he ruined his 
 cause by his own passionate wilfulness and extreme imprudence. He 
 had brought it about, that Duke Charles of Durazzo should be made 
 king of Naples. But after this he fell into a quarrel with that prince, 
 because he refused to comply with the pope's wishes in promoting one 
 
 ' Henry's own words : Ac si in nullo tare, sen principi volenti rempublicam et 
 
 casu liceret populo vol alicui sine auctori- civium universitatem destruere, ad cujus 
 
 tate j)nncipis contra statuta coran>unia pro conservationcm est constitutus, tamquam 
 
 (Icfcubiouc sui et pateraaruni legum mili- hosti non re^'i resistere. C 15 f. 42. 
 
SCHISM OF THE CHURCH (BONIFACE IX.) 61 
 
 of his worthless nephews. He lilmself with the cardinals repaired to 
 Naples, for the purpose of working upon that prince by his personal in- 
 fluence. In this, however, he did not succeed, but was drawn into a 
 quarrel with Charles which daily p^rew more bitter. He was closely 
 besie.ged in a castle ; and here all he could do was to go through the 
 idle farce of stepping twice every day to a window, and pronouncing 
 the ban on the whole array. At length he was set free by a Genoese 
 fl'jet and transported to Genoa. Several cardinals, who had grown 
 tired of the worthless conduct of their pope, and of the humiliations 
 which he thus drew down upon himself, consulted with one another as 
 to the best method of placing the pope under surveillance, and so cir- 
 cumscribing his power, as to keep him from such indiscreet steps. 
 Urban having been informed of this, caused the suspected cardinals to 
 be arrested. His vengeance knew no bounds. He employed the rack 
 to lay bare the whole conspiracy. Thus he made himself more hate- 
 ful every day, and promoted the cause of his opponent. Urban, who 
 died in the year 1389, was succeeded by Boniface IX., a man desti- 
 tute of every moral quahty, as well as the knowledge requisite for an 
 ecclesiastical office. His ruling passion was the love of money. All 
 means were right to him which could minister to this passion. The 
 well-being of the church went with him for nothing. As Theodoric 
 of Niem reports, he was ignorant of all business in the Roman chan- 
 cery, and hence approved of everything that happened to be laid be- 
 fore him.i " In secular things — says the same writer — he was not 
 a little fortunate ; but weak in spiritual things. "^ When mass was 
 celebrated before him in the midst of many assembled prelates, this or 
 that secretary would ever and anon be coming to him, to make some 
 report about pecuniary matters, which to him were the most moment- 
 ous of all. 3 
 
 His accession to office happened at a time which might bring large 
 accessions of gain to one who did nothing but make traffic of spiritual 
 things to the ruin of the church. Pope Clement VI. had, as we have 
 remarked, already reduced the time of the jubilee to fifty years. It 
 was probably the'^hope of gain that induced Urban VI. to shorten the 
 time to thirty-three years. He died on the very year when this pe- 
 riod returned, and left the fruits to his successor. An innumerable 
 multitude from Germany, Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, England, and 
 other kingdoms where Urban was acknowledged, came together in 
 Kome, and large oblations were presented in the churches. Some 
 portion was used for the reconstruction of ruined church edifices. 
 But the major part came into the hands of Boniface and many others. 
 Not contented with this, Boniface sent^ letters of indulgence and 
 
 * L. 2 de schismate c. 6 : Ignoravit gra- fere vernalis facta fuit in curia tempore suo. 
 vitatem pontiticalis officii, et" adeo suppli- ^ L. 2 c. 13: In temporalibus non mcdi- 
 
 cationes sibj propositas indiscrete signavit, ocriter fortunatus, sed in spiritualibus de- 
 
 ac si nunquam fuisset in'Romana curia bilis. 
 constitutus, nee quae petebantur in ipsis ^ L. c. c. 11. 
 
 intellexit, et propositiones factas coram eo ^ Theodoric of Niem says of him, in 
 
 per advocates in ejus consistorio toto tern- this connection : Erat enim insatiabilis vo- 
 
 pore sui pontificatus non intelligens ad pc- rago et in avaritia uuUus ei similis. Lib. 1 
 
 tita nimis confuse respondit, uude inscitia c. 68. 
 
52 PAPACY AXD CnURCH CONSTITUTION'. 
 
 preacliers of inrluli^ence into all countries. These agents sold the indul- 
 gence to all uho gave the same sum as by computation the journey to 
 Rome would have cost them. Thus the sellers of indulgences were 
 enabled to briniz back from many countries more than a hundred thou- 
 Band florins ; and inasmuch as they bargained off their indulgences, 
 which to the people appeared the same as forgiveness of sins, without 
 requiring penitence, they laid the foundation of immense mischief.' 
 For money one might obtain from them, by virtue of the power to 
 bind and loose, which they claimed for themselves, all sorts of dispen- 
 sation. Enriched, they returned back in great state to Rome. Many 
 of them, Boniface caused to be arrested, on the charge of embezzle- 
 ment. Theodoric of Niem remarks, that several of these people came 
 to a bad end, cither falling victims to the fury of the people, or com- 
 mitting suicide. " It was befitting — says he — that they who so de- 
 ceived the christian people, when they were only serving their own 
 cuj'idity, should perish miserably .2 Simony and extortion from the 
 churches reached, under this pope, their highest pitch." In the first 
 seven years 3 he was still somewhat restrained from respect to the bet- 
 ter disposed among the cardinals, and pursued the traffic more clan- 
 destinelj^ No sooner, however, had these better persons died than 
 he cast off all further shame. With a view to cover Simony under 
 some show of law, he made it a rule, that none should obtain the 
 more important ecclesiastical offices, without first advancing a sum of 
 money, which, by the estimate of the Roman chancery, should equal 
 the income of the first vear, the so called annates. But now the 
 same amount was required even for the expectancy ; and thus many 
 paid the money, who never came into actual possession of the office. 
 All sorts of usury became common to meet the expenses of such a 
 purchase. Many vagabond monks roved idly about Rome, seeking 
 promotion, vdiich by bad arts might easily be obtained at that time at 
 the Roman court. The most worthless of men could get promoted to 
 the highest posts. The Bonifacian plantation, as it was called, a phrase 
 to denote the most corrupt members of the clergy, became a by-word 
 in every man's mouth. 
 
 Meantime the university of Paris did not cease to carry on its 
 work according to the princif)les, which, in this affiiir, they had ex- 
 pressed from the beginning ; and they lent all their energies to bring 
 about the restoration of peace to the church, and the reformation of 
 its abuses. They kept an incessant and attentive watch over the 
 conduct of the two popes. But the political relations of the kingdom 
 were unfavorable to them — the regency during the minority of King 
 Charles VI. of France, and afterwards his mental derangement. Cle- 
 ment found in Cardinal Peter de Luna of Arragon, a very skilful and 
 able negotiator, by whose means he endeavored to form a party among 
 the French princes, and without sticking at bribery, to set influences 
 at work against the university. Finally, the latter contrived iu spite 
 
 * Theodoric of Niem Ibid : Quia om- num populum dccepcrint, eoruin avaritiae 
 
 nia peecata ctiam sine poenitemia ipsis consulcntes male perderentur. 
 
 contiti'iitibus rc'Uixavcrunt. ^ 2,7. 
 
 ' JusLum eratj ut hi, qui talitcr Christia- 
 
SCHISM OF THE CHURCH. 53 
 
 of all difficulties to carry out their object; and in the year 1394 
 obtained license to set forth publicly before the king their opinion 
 respecting the most appropriate method of restoring tran'piillity to the 
 church. From their own number was chosen a distinguished man, to 
 draw up the judgment, Nicholas of Clemangis, so named from his 
 native place, Clamanges in Champagne, belonging to the diocese of 
 Chalons sur Marne. He was educated at the Paris university, be- 
 came a member of the collegium of Navarre, was master of the liberal 
 arts, then Baccalaureus of Theology, and a disciple of the Chancellor 
 Gerson. He was even more distinguished than that great man for 
 enlarged views and classical culture. In his theological tendency he 
 was not cramped and confined within the common limits of the univer- 
 sity of Paris, as we shall hereafter perceive. In the judgment drawn 
 up by his pen and which he presented to the king at the head of a 
 deputation from the university, we recognize his own spirit and style. 
 
 There were three methods, among which the university left freedom 
 for choice ; that both popes should, for the good of the church, re- 
 sign ; that they should submit their respective claims to the investi- 
 gation of chosen and approved men ; or the meeting of a general coun- 
 cil.» 
 
 This council should, according to the then current legal form, con- 
 sist of prelates exclusively ; or else ina&much as these, to their shame 
 and reproach,^ were for the most part ignorant, and several of them 
 too partial 3 to one or the other side, there must be joined with the 
 prelates, in equal number, masters and doctors of theology and of 
 law from the universities ; or, if these were not enough, delegates 
 should be added from the cathedral churches, the chapters, and the 
 monastic orders. Next, the right to the meeting of a general council 
 is defended against the arguments alleged to the contrary by the 
 advocates of the old church doctrine. Although this method had 
 been objected to as an unsuitable one, by some flatterers and pro- 
 moters of this monstrous schism, from its beginning down to the present 
 time, rather to nourish the disorder than to act according to the judg- 
 ment of truth ; yet whoever would examine into the matter without 
 prejudice, must see that this method was by no means so objection- 
 able. There was, indeed, so much the more need of a general coun- 
 cil, at a time when discipline, manners, and good order had, by the 
 operation of this mischief-bringing schism, sunk to the lowest ebb, and 
 so many abuses had crept abroad, that if the church were not soon 
 helped, she must be plunged in irremediable ruin. " Too late — he 
 exclaims, addressing the popes, — will it repent you to have looked 
 about after no remedies. If now, when it stands in your power, 
 you do not see the near-impending dangers, who do you suppose will 
 still be willing to endure such government of the church ? Who to 
 bear these extortions and wrongs of the church — who, these cheap 
 
 ^ The via cessionis, compromissi aut * Quia plures eorum proh pudor ! hodie 
 coucilii generalis. The judgment in Bulae. satis illiterati sunt. Pag. 690. 
 1. 1. Jf ag. 687 sc[. ^ Pluresque ad alterutram partem inor- 
 
 dinate affecti. 
 
 6* 
 
54 PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 promotions of all the worthless and the most ignorant to all the highest 
 dignities ? You deceive yourselves, assuredly you deceive yourselves, 
 if you suppose that this will long be tolerated in you. If men will not 
 see it, or seeing it, will be silent, the very stones shall cry out against 
 you." 
 
 To the (juestion, whence comes the authority of a council, he an- 
 swers, — •' The consent and agreement of all the faithful will confer 
 it, Christ in the gospel confers it, when he says, " Where two or three 
 are gathered in my name, I am in the midst of them." 
 
 After a full explanation of the above-mentioned three methods for 
 the restoration of unity, it is declared : AVhichever of the two popes 
 refuses to adopt one of these three methods, or to propose some other, 
 is to be regarded as an obstinate schismatic, and therefore a heretic. 
 He is no shepherd of the church, but a tyrant, and must no longer be 
 obeyed. 
 
 The king is most earnestly called upon to do all in his power for 
 the restoration of peace to the church ; to make all secular affairs give 
 way to this. To this end, the evils that had resulted from the schism 
 are minutely portrayed. In connection with this, to be sure, we find 
 it erroneously assumed, — for it is an error according to the history 
 as we have presented it — that the church down to the time of this 
 schism had been in a flourishiniz; condition. But this statement is 
 somewhat modified ; for the existing evils are not imputed directly and 
 solely to the schism itself, but in part also to the preceding state of 
 things ; so that a time of corruption may accordingly be marked, which 
 existed previous to the schism.^ Worthless and wicked men had 
 been promoted to the government of the church, and were still pro- ' 
 moted to the same ; men to whom nothing was sacred ; by whose dis- 
 graceful acts and in ministration to whose pleasures, the churches 
 were drained, the monasteries plundered. The priests were seen 
 begging, or they were employed on the most menial and degrading 
 services. The church utensils of gold and silver were in many places 
 sold to eke out those extortions. How many churches had been 
 brought to ruin ! He complains of the simony which had occasioned 
 the worst appointments to spiritual offices. It was not the learned 
 who received promotion ; but the more learned men were, the more 
 were they detested, because by such simony was more boldly castigat- 
 ed than by others. As the most wicked abuse of all, to describe 
 which language scarcely strong enough could be found, he signalizes 
 the abuse in the administration of the sacraments, especially of ordina- 
 tion and of penance. 2 Nothing was to be said about the curtailment 
 of the liberties of the church, and the loss of its goods, for they were 
 only temporals ; although, in these times, temporals were regarded as 
 of the greater importance. ^ 
 
 ' Quid ante hoc schisma schismatisque omnium injustas coUationcs et praecipue 
 
 praeamliulaecclesia tiarcntius ? Pag. 693. ordinuin ac poenitentiac turpi detestabili- 
 
 ^ Et quod ini(iuis.simuni est, nee satis que (piaostu vcndit. Pag. 694. 
 
 exaggerari verbis potest, haec est, quae ^ Quamtiuam majora isti hacc tempora- 
 
 damnatissima corruptela sacramcutorum liajudicaut. 
 
OPINION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS ON THE SCHISM. 55 
 
 The university next defended itself against the reproach tliat it 
 chose to inveigh against the pope, (for whose honor the university 
 should be more zealous than all others), from its ambition to govern 
 all things, especially in the church, according to its will. They who 
 cast upon the university this reproach — it was said — were endeavor- 
 ing to maintain the schism in the church, for their own emolument ; 
 for, in any well-ordered condition of the church, they would find it 
 impossible to secure so many and fat benefices.^ It is true, said the 
 university, they do not want to govern the church ; they prefer to let 
 themselves be governed ; but they do want on the other hand to 
 practise extortions, to destroy and rend the churches. And because, 
 constrained by our own conscience and the truth, we cannot remain 
 silent at this, because we are neither willing nor able to bear it with 
 equanimity, it is for this reason that they, in so great danger of the 
 church, have fabricated such charges against us. Does it become us 
 to keep silence, where the very stones ought to cry out ? 
 . When the university presented this writing, they received at first 
 an evasive answer. But when they pressed for a more decided de- 
 claration, they received for answer, It was the king's pleasure that 
 they should neither treat nor consider this matter any farther, that 
 they should not receive nor open any letters relating to it, until they 
 had first been shown to the king. Upon this the university carried 
 into eifect the resolution previously passed, that sermons and lectures 
 should be suspended by all their members until satisfaction was given 
 to their demands.^ Next, the university addressed to the pope a 
 very frank and bold letter, in which they strongly protested against 
 the intriguing conduct of the Cardinal Peter de Luna, without men- 
 tioning his name, and urgently besought him to do all in his power, to 
 put a speedy end to the schism ; so that this schism — which God 
 avert — might not become an everlasting one, for the thing had al- 
 ready come to that pass, that men were heard openly to say, it made 
 no sort of difference how many popes there were. There might be 
 not two or three only, but even twelve. Each realm might have its 
 own ecclesiastical superior ; and each of these might be independent 
 of the others. 3 
 
 It is clear from this, how the being accustomed to have no general- 
 ly acknowledged pope, had already had the effect of leading men to 
 think, that perhaps one universal visible head of the church was a 
 thing not necessary. The pope, it is said, manifested great indigna- 
 tion in reading this letter — calhng it, as was reported to the univer- 
 sity, a malignant and venomous letter.'* The university thereupon 
 issued a second letter to the pope, vindicating itself from this re- 
 proach, and showing that they had acted out of pure zeal for the 
 
 * Magnas quippe dignitates et crassa quot Papae sint, et non solummodo duo 
 
 beneficia in hac turbata ecclesia assequun- aut tres, sed decern aut duodecim, imo et 
 
 tur, quas Integra ac unita se nunquam adi- singulis regnis singulos praeiici posse, nul- 
 
 pisci posse et merito conriderent. Fag. 695. la sibi invicem potestatis aut jurisdictionis 
 
 ^ Bulaeus, 1. c. pag. 696. auctoritate praelatos. L. 1. pag. 700. 
 
 ^ Ut plerumque passim et publice non * Malae sunt et venenosae. L. 1. pag. 
 
 vereantur dicere, Nihil omnino curandura, 701. 
 
56 PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 welfare of the church, still expressing themselves, however, with great 
 freedom. But Clement was already dead. Now, if it had been pos- 
 sible at this juncture to prevent a new papal election on this side, the 
 removal of the schism would thereby have been greatly facilitated. 
 The university of Paris endeavored to bring this about by letters and 
 delegates sent to the king, and directly afterwards to the college of 
 cardinals : but they could effect nothing. The cardinals at Avignon 
 only made more haste to complete their election, so as to frustrate 
 this design. They thought themselves bound to maintain their rights 
 against the other party. Yet before proceeding to the election, they 
 pledged themselves' to use every effort to bring about the restoration 
 of peace to the church, and agreed that whichever one of them should 
 be chosen pope, he would not hesitate, if it should be necessary to 
 effect tliat end, to resign his dignity. The already named Cardinal 
 Peter de Luna of Arragon, a man far superior to his predecessors, at 
 least in clerical dignity, plausible manners, and the art of managing 
 men, was chosen pope. He called himself Benedict XIII. lie had 
 been, earlier, professor of the canon law at Montpellier, and had en- 
 joyed a good reputation .2 Gregory XI. made him cardinal .3 He 
 had, thus far, as Theodoric of Niem says, manifested great zeal for 
 the restoration of the unity of the church. When employed by Pope 
 Clement on embassies, he had found fault, because the pope did no- 
 thing for the restoration of concord to the church. But his adminis- 
 tration of the papacy did not answer the expectations which his pre- 
 vious conduct may have inspired. He utterly ignored the pledge, 
 which he had given before he assumed the papal dignity. He did 
 not recognize the form of that oath, when sent to him, as genuine, and 
 asserted that a pope could not be bound.^ 
 
 In the year 1401,5 Nicholas of Clemangis composed his remarkable 
 book on the corruptions of the Church, in which he sets forth these 
 corruptions, affecting all portions of the church, in the darkest col- 
 ors, and yet most assuredly in accordance with the truth. He too, 
 not only considers the schism as a consequence of the corruptions in 
 the church, but also as a means designed to bring men to the con- 
 sciousness of them. "Who does not know — says he — that this 
 frightful pest of schism was first introduced into the church by the 
 
 ' The form is to be found in Bulac. 1. c. copiam, quam confictam esse constanter 
 
 f. 730. assorimus, tibi remittimus. It bids the 
 
 ^ Theodoric of Niem writes concerning cardinals pag. 731, ne in dicta schcdula 
 
 him, from an acquaintance with him tliir- vos suhscribatis, nee etiam consentiatis 
 
 tv-six years before at Montpellier : Homo aliqualiter aliis, quae non licent seu non 
 
 irif,'eniosus et ad inveniendum res novas decent, seu ex quibus occasio forte posset 
 
 valde subtilis. Cf 1. 2, c. 33, deprehendi, quod contra reverentiam, obe- 
 
 ^ Theodoric of Niem says of him : Qui dientiam aut honcrcm nobis et ecdesiae 
 
 tunc satis dilegel)atur a multis, eo quod liomanae j)er vos debitas, seu laudabiles 
 
 peritus et virtuosus existeret, a pluribus mores inter nos et vos, praedecessores 
 
 laudabatur. nostros et vestros observari consuetos ali- 
 
 * Du Boulay, p. 729, cites the letter of qua tierent. 
 the pope to the kinj; of France: Respon- ^ As he himself says in the book de rui- 
 
 demus, quod cjui til)i vel aliis ista scripse- na ecdesiae c. 16, — II. v. d. Ilardt tom. I, 
 
 runt, vel quomodolibet rctulerunt, minus pars III. paj;. 18, when the division had 
 
 veridiec id egeruut, et propterea dictam already lasted nearly twenty-three years. 
 
CLEMANGIS DE RUIXA ECCLESIiE. 57 
 
 Tvickcrlness of the cardinals, that bj them it has ])een promoted, })ro- 
 pagated, and enabled to strike its roots so deep."^ '• If — says he — all 
 kingdoms however mighty, great and exalted, have been prostrated 
 to the dust by injustice and pride, how knowest thou — so he addresses 
 the church — when thou hast cast far from thee the firm rock of liu- 
 niility thou wast founded on, and which feared no storm of invasion, 
 and hast lifted thy horn on high, that such a fabric of pride, erected 
 by tliyself, will not be overthrown ? Ah-eady has thy pride, which 
 could not sustain itself, begun slowly and gradually to fall, and on 
 this account its fall was not perceived by the majority. But now thou 
 art wholly plunged in the gulf, and especially since the breaking out 
 of this abominable schism. Most surely has the divine anger permit- 
 ted this to come upon thee as a check to thy intolerable wickedness, 
 that thy domination so displeasing to God, so odious to the nations, 
 may, by being divided within itself, come to nought." Not that the 
 true faith would run any hazard in this conflict of contending churches 
 in the world ; this being founded upon the firm rock would remain 
 unshaken ; but it was otherwise with all that temporal power, 
 glory and pleasure wherewith the church was overladen even to loath- 
 ing and the forgetfulness of herself.2 As the cessation of the syna- 
 gogue followed close upon the destruction of Jerusalem, so the fall of 
 Kome as seat and head of the church, seemed to indicate that the de- 
 struction of the church herself and her dominion might be near at 
 hand. For how could she long subsist, who, deprived of her original 
 seat and head, was obliged to roam about fugitive and inconstant, 
 and like a stranger in the world wander from one placo to another. 
 She must have foreseen her impending fall, since the time that, detest- 
 ed for her fornication, she fled from Rome to Avignon ; where in pro- 
 portion to her greater freedom, she more openly and shamelessly ex- 
 posed to view the ways of her simony and profanation, bringing foreign 
 and perverted manners, the source of infinite mischief, into France. 
 Where good manners and severe discipline once reigned, immoderate 
 luxury had, by her means, now begun to spread. Holding up the 
 synagogue as an antetype of the church, he bids the latter take warn- 
 ing by the fate of the former. Then he addresses the church i 
 *'Awake, for once, from thy long sleep, wretched sister of the syna- 
 gogue ! Awake, I say, at last, for once ; and set a hmit to thy intox- 
 ication, which it might take thee long enough, so to speak, to sleep out ! 
 If one spark of a sound understanding still remains in thee, search 
 diligently into the writings of the prophets, and know from them, that 
 the hour of thy shame is no longer at a distance, but close by. Thou 
 wilt see what an end awaits thee ; and how evil and dangerous it is 
 for thee to lie long in this filth. "'^ He describes'' into what ignominious 
 dependance on the French court, Clement VII. had cast himself; how 
 he was compelled to sacrifice the good of the church to the interests 
 of the French princes. He speaks of the scandalous bargaining away 
 
 * C. 16. et oblivionem sui ipsa ecclesia obruta est. 
 
 ' Loquor cle temporali potentatu, de Cap. 42. 
 gloria et deliciis, quibus usque ad nauseam '^ Cap. 41. * Cap. 42. 
 
58 PAPACY AND CHURCH COXSTITUTIOX. 
 
 of benefices. "What poorer creature — says he — was there than 
 our Clement as long as he lived, who had so debased himself to the 
 condition of a servant of servants to the princes of France, that such 
 threats and scornful language were daily heaped upon him by the peo- 
 ple of the court, as ought not to be borne by the most miserable slave ! 
 He gave way to their rage, he gave way to the time, he gave way to 
 clamorous demands. He used falsehoods, disguises ; gave splendid 
 promises ; put oft* with fair hopes from one day to another. To some 
 he gave benefices, others he held at bay with words. All who by the 
 art of flattery or of playing the buffoon, had made themselves agree- 
 able to the court, he took every pains to please, and to secure their favor 
 by benefices, in order that by the good offices of such he might make 
 sure of the favor of their master." On the handsome and well- 
 dressed young men, in whose companionship he most delighted, he 
 had bestowed nearly all the vacant bishoprics and other most honor- 
 able posts. The more easily to secure and preserve the goodwill of the 
 princes, he had himself 'and without solicitation sent them presents, 
 allowed them to practise any extortions they chose on the clergy, 
 nay even invited them to do so at their pleasure. In this most deplor- 
 able servitude, which could not be called a government of the church, 
 he had spent more than fifteen years, inflicting an injury on the church, 
 surpassing all belief. 
 
 He goes through the several orders and offices of the church for the 
 purpose of pointing out the corruption in them all. He describes * 
 the worldly pride and state of the cardinals, who when they had been 
 raised from the lowest rank and from the humblest offices to that 
 highest dignity, as for example, from the condition of grave-diggers, 
 wholly forgot what they once were, and looked down upon all the other 
 spiritual offices of the church with disdain. He reproached them with 
 their luxurious habits of living ; 2 accused them of grasping at all the 
 benefices, of practising simony. He speaks 3 of the bad appointments 
 to benefices proceeding from the Roman chancery, which had usurped 
 everything to itself. Not from studious pursuits and the school alone, 
 but from the plough, and from menial employments, individuals were 
 *here and there called to the guidance of parishes and to the other be- 
 nefices ; men who understood little more of Latin than they did of the 
 
 rabic language ; nay, men who could not even read, and shame to 
 say, hardly knew the alphabet. But may they not perhaps have made 
 amends fur this ignorance by the excellence of their manners ? Not 
 in the least. Brought up without learning in idleness, they busied 
 themselves only with looking out for their pleasures, feasting and sport- 
 ing. Hence in all places, so many bad, wretched, ignorant priests, 
 whose scandalous lives made them both offensive and sources of 
 corrujition to the communities. Hence the expressions of contempt 
 for priests on the li[)S of all the people. While it was formerly the 
 case, that with people of the world the priesthood stood in the 
 
 ' Cap. 13. 3 Cap. 7. 
 
 ' linnu'iisa et inexcusabilis vorago coa- 
 cupidccutiac. 
 
CLEMANGIS DE RUINA ECCLESI^. 59 
 
 highest honor, and notJiin;^ was considered more ^vorthy of rcs[)ect 
 than this order, now nothing was considered more deserving of con- 
 tempt, lie complains ' that the study of tlie scriptures, and every 
 man who engaged in that study, were ridiculed; and especial! v — 
 which Avas mo'st to be wondered at — by the bishops, who looked 
 upon their own decrees as of vastly more importance than the divine 
 precepts. That glorious office of preaching, the fairest of 
 all offices, and which once belonged solely to the pastors, had sunk 
 among them to so low esteem, that there was nothing they held to be 
 more worthless, or less becoming their dignity. He points out - the 
 mendicants as being almost the only persons that occup'-ied themselves 
 ■with the study of the scriptures, that supplied the office of preaching, 
 who alone, as they affirme<l, administered the functions of all the church 
 offices which were neglected by all others, alone represented that which 
 by the vices, the ignorance and remissness of all the rest had fallen 
 into desuetude. But next he attacks these also, representing them as 
 the genuine successors of the Pharisees described in the gos{)els, who, 
 under their show of holiness, concealed all manner of wickedness. 
 They were ravening wolves in sheep's clothing, who put- on for out- 
 side show, severity of life, chastity, humility, holy simplicity, but in 
 secret abandoned themselves to the choicest pleasures, to a dainty variety 
 of luxurious enjoyments. He acknowledges 3 that in the midst of the 
 great mass of the bad members of the church there was doubtless also 
 a good seed ; since Christ had promised of the church at large, that 
 her faith should not become utterly extinct ; but in the midst of so 
 many that were bad, the small number of the good vanished to a point. 
 The proportion was scarcely one to a thousand. And whenever an 
 individual in a community distinguished himself by his pious living, he 
 was made a butt of ridicule for the rest, was pointed out as a proud 
 man, a singular fellow, an insane person or a hypocrite ; hence num- 
 bers from whom some good might come,had they been associated with 
 the good, were in the society of the bad swept along into wickedness. 
 Clemangis saw more profoundly than others into the corruptions of 
 the church, and its causes ; and hence he placed but little confidence in 
 the means employed for its removal. He was penetrated with a tho- 
 rough conviction that the thing needed here was a deep-going process 
 of purification, to be accomplished only by the wisdom and almighty 
 power of God ; and he saw that the evils Avhich men vainly sought to 
 heal by higher remedies, must in spite of all human expedients contin- 
 ually go on increasing to their fullest measure before that help could 
 come from God. " Because — says he — the church, though torn and 
 rent by so many calamities, refused to humble herself, she justly there- 
 fore must first be humbled by Him, who humbles whatever exalteth 
 itself, and exalts the lowly, to the end that she may return back to 
 the state of grace from which she has fallen. She must first be still 
 more afflicted, still more smitten ; not till then can she be healed."'* 
 "For — says he — as regards the restoration of the church, rent 
 asunder by this unhappy schism, it is vain to hope that any thing of 
 
 ' Cap. 19. « Cap. 33. ' Cap. 39, 40. * Cap. 43 
 
60 PAPACY AXD cnrRcn constitution. 
 
 this sort ^vill be brought about by us. This can never be accomplish- 
 ed by man's ^^•ork, never by any human art Avhatsoever. This tiling 
 requires of a certainty another hand. And if ever a union of the 
 church shall take jjlace, the physician that effects it must be He who 
 ^ave the wound ; for the wound is so grave and incurable as to be in- 
 capable of heahng by iVny other pains. A great deal has been done 
 on this subject, a great deal written ; a great deal said ; many embas- 
 sies have hoen undertaken on account of it. But the more we have 
 met and deliberated and proposed, the more complicated and obscure 
 the matter has grown ; for God mocks our pains, because w^e fancy 
 ourselves able by our own prudence and skill, without Ids help, to ac- 
 comjdish what is his work alone. Add to this, that we are unworthy 
 of receiving peace from .him and of having peace ; for God the Lord 
 has said, '' There is no peace to the wicked." He looks forward in 
 expectation of a persecution of the church, sent as a divine judgment, 
 and growing out of the schism. By this persecution coming from the 
 secular power, the church would be deprived of the rights and posses- 
 sions not her own which she had brought within her grasp, and re- 
 duced back to poverty. "This persecution — says he — will come 
 upon us sooner perhaps than many are aware. We might see the 
 foundation already laid for it in various ways, were we not so blinded ; 
 and any man possessed of his senses, may certainly see how this per- 
 secution threatens to break out" more and more every day." Scan- 
 ning with a prophetic eye the remote future as if it were near at hand, 
 Clemangis predicts such a process of purification and such a revolution 
 of the church, as subsequently proceeded from the Reformation. 
 " What methods — he concludes — still remain in thy hands, Christ, 
 if thou wilt purify thy church from such dross as that into which its 
 gold and silver have been converted? what other method, than that 
 thou wilt finally purge away from the refining even this dross itself, 
 which can by no refining fire be again transmuted into gold and silver, 
 and prepare in it a new metal of untarnished purity ? " 
 
 In order clearly to understand how this distinguished man judges 
 concerning the corruption of the church of his time, and concerning 
 the means requisite for its cure, we should compare with this book a 
 treatise which he addressed to a friend of his, who was candidate for 
 a theological degree, and proposed to hold lectures on the Sentences 
 at some university. This was his treatise on the Sliufy qf Theology.^ 
 He represents the chief end of theological study to be education for 
 the office of preaching. In the neglect of this, he finds the [)rincipal 
 cause of the corruption of the church. In the exercise of this office, 
 we ought chlelly to imitate Christ ; for his whole activity had consisted 
 in teaching. "For sometimes — says he — Christ taught his disci- 
 ples, sometimes the multitude, sometimes the Pharisees ; occasionally 
 he taught in the synagogue, often in the temple, sometimes on the land, 
 sometimes on the water, sometimes on mount-iiins, sometimes on the 
 plains ; oftentimes he taught many together ; then again, individuals. 
 
 ' De studio thcologico in d'Achcry's Spicilegiuin, vol. I, p. 473 sq. 
 
CLEMANGIS DE STUDIO THEOLOGICO. 61 
 
 Who should not saj, then, that the best method is the one which Christ, 
 the perfect pattern of all that is good, practised unceasingly while liv- 
 ing in the flesh ? But what is meant by being a teacher ? What else 
 than this ; with the right art, with experience, and zeal for the cure of 
 souls, to teach others ? For it is not the square cap, not the higher 
 pulpit that makes the doctor." To the theologian or to the preacher 
 — says he — for I look upon both as one and the same — it belongs, in 
 particular, to live uprightly according to the will of God, that in the 
 practice of this commandment, and in all life and conversation, he 
 may furnish a pattern to all." He accordingly regards the practical 
 element as the end and aim of theological study, and disputes a theo- 
 logian of some eminence, who had asserted that to teach and dispute 
 at the University, was something of higher note than to preach. 
 " Since — says he — the end of theological study is to instruct in the 
 right manner one's self and others in that which pertains to eternal 
 life, so we may see which we should consider as most profitable and 
 salutary, whether actively to discharge the predicatorial office in zeal 
 for the salvation of souls, or after one has obtained the academical de- 
 gree, to remain always at the University, teaching and disputing. 
 What purpose — says he — is all this to serve ? Certainly this pur- 
 pose ; to form others that they may be capable of leading the rest to 
 salvation. Now if the means must correspond to the end, is it not 
 better, by one*s own preaching to lead others to salvation, than to edu- 
 cate such as are destined thus to operate on others, but will perhaps 
 never do so P Who must not see — he says — that it is better to ban- 
 ish errors out of the hearts of men, than out of books ? In many things, 
 the people at the present time stand at a very great distance in their 
 ways of thinking from that which the true faith requires. They use 
 magical arts ; they are closely wrapt in various superstitions ; they 
 seek advice from fortune-tellers ; they are in error as to the majority 
 of the articles of faith. If there is much acute disputation against 
 all this in the schools, of what avail is it to those, who, remote 
 from such places, hear nothing of all this, those whom no theologians 
 ever come to instruct ? Is not the physician who, after having learn- 
 ed the art, visits and heals the sick, more useful than he who never 
 exercises the art, but only disputes in the schools ?" ^ The cause, 
 however, of the neglect of preaching, and the cause of the bad 
 preaching in his own time, he finds in the false treatment of theo- 
 logy, as merely a matter of the understanding and not a matter of the 
 heart ; in the dislike of the study of the bible, in the one-sided scholas- 
 tic tendency, in the fact that such a theology was pursued as could 
 neither fill the heart with zeal for the preacher's office, nor render one 
 qualified for its performance. He says — " We see most school-the- 
 ologians at the present time attributing so little weight to proofs drawn 
 from the scriptures, that they deride a proof grounded on such autho- 
 rity, as indicating a sluggish intellect, or want of acuteness ; as if that 
 "Were of more weight, which is excogitated by human invention, than 
 
 Pag. 478. ' Pag. 479. 
 
 VOL. V. 
 
62 PAPACY AXD CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 "what God had revealed from heaven. After citing the words in 2 Tim. 
 3 : 16, he says '' Of little profit to that end, are the things in which 
 the majority exercise themselves at the present day ; things which may 
 indeed in some Avay or other serve to sharpen the intellect, but can 
 neither warm the heart, kindle emotion in the soul, nor supply it with 
 any nourishment, but leave it cold, hard and witiiered."^ Hence it is, 
 that they are so indolent in discharging the preacher's office. They 
 have never learned the science which ministers thereto. This is the 
 true knowledge after which every theologian should strive, knowledge 
 which not only informs the understanding, but at the same time takes 
 hold on the affections. "^ He compares the theology of his time to the 
 apples of Sodom, which, seen from without, a])pearcd fair, but within 
 were only dust and ashes. Accordingly such a theology could never 
 still the cravings of the spirit, however acute and ingenious it might 
 appear. lie calls upon his friend, to study in particular the church 
 fathers ; but to regard these as only the rivulets, leading back to the 
 fountain-head of the Holy Scriptures themselves. He already lays 
 down the principle, that in matters of religion, nothing should be as- 
 serted which could not be proved out of the sacred scriptures, where, 
 by rightly searching, one would find everything necessary to be known 
 in order to salvation. 3 
 
 The predictions uttered by Cleraangis, in his book De ruina eccle- 
 siae, about the fruitless character of the means by which it was at- 
 tempted to do away the schism, were more and more verified every 
 day. The university of Paris issued a letter to Pope Benedict soon 
 after his accession to office, calling upon him in the most pressing 
 manner to set forward the cause of the union without any procrastina- 
 tion. He ought not to delay even for a moment. If he waited but 
 a day, another would soon be added, and so the whole thing would 
 pass into forgetfulness. Flatterers would come : men who, under the 
 guise of friendship, instilled the deadliest poison. Men, ambitious for 
 dignities ; eager aspirants for promotions and benefices ; all the 
 courtiers who did homage to the power of the moment : and if to such 
 he opened his ears, they would be ever drawhig him farther and 
 farther from this matter. United with all this would be the sweet 
 custom of honor, best fitted of all things to entice and deceive him, as 
 it had done with many, especially in these times. He had the latest 
 example of this in his predecessor, who had by it alone been led to 
 adhere so obstinately to the opinion he had once adopted. But if 
 Benedict should advert to the fact, that all did not depend on him, 
 that there was something incumbent also on the other pope, it was main- 
 
 * Ad quae ilia sunt parum utilia, in qui- at, scd infundat simul atque imbuat affoc- 
 
 bus hodie j)lurimi cxercentur, (juae licet tuni. lljid. 
 
 intellectum utcumque acuant, nuUo tamcn ^ Quoniam in his quae divina sunt, nihil 
 
 igne suctondunt atlectum, nullo niotu ex- debeinus teniere delinire, nisi ex eoelesti- 
 
 citant, nullo aliniento pascunt, sed frig- bus possit oraculis ai)prol)aii : quae divini- 
 
 idum, torpentem, aridum relinquunt. Pag. tus enuntiata de his, quae scitu de deosunt 
 
 476. neccssaria, aut ad salutem opportuna, si 
 
 ^ Ilia est vera scientia, quae theologum diligentur investigarentur, nos sufficienter 
 
 decet, quamque omnis debet theologus ex- instruunt. Ibid, 
 petere, (^uae non modo intellectum instru- 
 
THE THREE CHURCH PARTIES. 6B 
 
 tairied on tlie other hand, tliat without the least doubt everythin-' 
 depended on his doing his own duty ; and the other might 1)0 left to 
 do the same, or, if he did not do it, he must inevitably make the 
 wickedness of his course evident to all. The pope returned to this 
 letter of the university, an answer couched in the most general terms, 
 expressing his earnest desire of promoting tJie unity of the church, 
 but at the same time excusing himself on the plea that all did not 
 depend on him alone, and that he felt himself pledged to nothing. 
 
 To explain the fact, how the popes could for so long a time disap- 
 point the earnest desires of all the well-disposed for the restoration of 
 church-unity, and for a renovation of the church, now so deeply de- 
 pressed, and to understand rightly the fluctuating, uncertain cliaracter 
 of the negotiations entered into with them, we should have distinctly 
 before our minds -the relation of the parties by which they were in- 
 fluenced. As usually happens in passing from an old state of things 
 to a new, three parties had sprung up : one, which was utterly unable 
 to rid itself of the principles of the medieval ecclesiastical law, and of 
 papal absolutism, and which ever eyed with suspicion all attempts to 
 set another authority as judge over the pope ; a second, which was 
 disposed to carry out against the pope with reckless violence, and 
 without sparing, the principles of the new ecclesiastical law now in the 
 process of formation, according to which the popes should be sub- 
 ject to the control of general councils, — a party inchned to radical 
 revolution ; and the more prudent and moderate advocates of the new 
 system, of the new liberty of the church, at whose head stood men 
 like D'Ailly and Gerson. The French church itself, which labored 
 most zealously for the removal of the schism, and the reform of the 
 church, was divided into these three parties, and their own conten- 
 tions with each other promoted the interests of Pope Benecfict, who 
 possessed far more self-reliance and craft than his predecessors, and 
 the popes of the other party, and who seems to have understood how 
 to exercise a certain power over the minds of others. Opposed to the 
 free spirit of the university of Paris was the tendency and bent of the 
 university at Toulouse, which was still fast entangled in the old sys- 
 tem. But in the university of Paris itself, those two parties, — the 
 party inclined to radical measures, and the more moderate one, could 
 not come to any agreement. The one wanted from the first to put an 
 end to the crafty intrigues of Benedict, and with the aid of the secular 
 power to break up his rule. They would go the length of renouncing 
 ecclesiastical obedience to him, thus compelling him to resign. A 
 welcome thing to them it would be if the French church sho'iild for 
 once subsist without a pope and govern itself. It might doubtless be 
 the case also that, with many, worldly interests mixed in. The more 
 prudent party dreaded a movement which, once set agoing, might lead 
 farther than Avas at first proposed. With the theological faculty the 
 considerations of mildness and forbearance had the most weight ; but 
 they easily yielded to the preponderance of the other faculties. Ger- 
 son, by his character and his principles, was no less violent in his 
 opposition to all that appeared to him revolutionary in the evolution 
 
64 PAPACY AXD CHURCH C0X5TITUTI0N. 
 
 of the church, than he was to all slavish dependance of the church 
 upon the popes, and the mean course, which appeared to him tlie 
 only right one between the two extremes, he was for thrusting upon 
 all. It might appear surprising, that the already mentioned Nicholas 
 of Clemangis, the organ through whom the Paris university expressed 
 its earlier free-spoken declarations against the pope, who, for freedom 
 of mind stood fir above all the Parisian theologians, and had ventured 
 to break through the common limits of the Parisian theology, should 
 not in this case, however, be at all satisfied with the bolder party 
 which stood forth against Pope Benedict. But for the very reason 
 that he saw so deeply into the corruption of the church and its causes, 
 he could not indulge the hopes by which others allowed themselves to 
 be deceived. lie was convinced from the bemnnin";, that something 
 else must be relied on than human wisdom ; that help was to be 
 expected for the church from God alone. He feared that by all the 
 attempts to cure, the evil might only be made worse. He was per- 
 fectly satisfied with neither one of the parties. In those who stood 
 forth with the most freedom and boldness, he missed a pure and single 
 interest for the well-being of the church ; he believed that he saw 
 selfish motives. He beheld little else but the contest of passions ; he 
 did not find the wisdom and calm collectedness that grew out of cool 
 persuasion, by which alone the rightful cause could be ascertained. 
 The conduct of Benedict's enemies appeared to him indelicate, passion- 
 ate and unforbearing. He failed of seeing in it the respect which was 
 due to the head of the church. Although in his theological tendency 
 he was otherwise more free than the rest of the Parisian thelogians, 
 and not trammelled by the fetters of scholasticism, yet he could not so 
 easily as many others set himself beyond all respect for the papal 
 oflSce. He feared an indevout tendenc}^ striving to break loose from 
 the head of the church. He saw arbitrary will and a licentious free- 
 dom already spreading far and wide, in lieu of discipline and good 
 order. He feared that in place of dependance on the popes, in whom 
 he would by no means approve of the abuse of power, would be sub- 
 stituted a still more corrupting dependance on princes and courts. 
 In view of such dangers as these which seemed to him to threaten the 
 course of the party which proposed to break loose from Pope Bene- 
 dict, he was from conviction an opponent of those violent steps against 
 him. Add to this, that Clemangis could not in particular place the 
 least confidence in those hopes which were built on the declaration of 
 neutrality by France. He believed that by this divisions only would 
 arise in their own party, and that the opposite elements instead of 
 being enfeebled would gain strength. Neithdr would the abdication 
 of Pope Benedict be of any use unless the other pope should resolve 
 to do likewise, or his party were disposed to force him to it. Thus he 
 feared that by division among themselves and consequent weakness, 
 the other party would only become more confirmed and more haughty, 
 while no issue would be reached. These considerations made him 
 from the beginning and ever after an opponent of the proposed renun- 
 ciation of Pope Benedict, and he held his position to the last, when 
 
NICHOLAS OF CLEMANGIS. 65 
 
 Ms voice could no longer be heard against so many others, and what 
 he would have prevented if he could, was still carried through. The 
 consequences that ensued justified the views which had been express- 
 ed by him. Add to this, that Benedict, personally, had made a 
 favorable impression on him. lie was inclined to excuse the steps he 
 had taken ; he gave him credit for more interest in the welfare of the 
 church than others did. lie always carefully abstained from flatter- 
 ing the pope ; he reminded him in the strongest language of his duty to 
 the church. When the pope entered upon his office, Clemangis wrote 
 him a letter upon that occasion. In 1394, explaining to him the point 
 of view, such as we have already described it, under which he himself 
 regarded the relations of the church at that time. *' Far be from 
 me " — he wrote — " any wish to flatter the pope, as from my early 
 youth, this worst of pests, which commits such frightful ravages on ail 
 common interests, has ever been to me an abomination. Plenty of those 
 will appear before you, who, unused to speak the truth, and inflamed 
 by a blind desire of benefices, will endeavor to flatter your ears with 
 deceitful words. Would to God there were even but a few still left, 
 fair and friendly enough, to tell you the truth which engenders hatred, 
 which is unwelcome to the multitude, though welcome, as I hope, to 
 your heart. I confess, that at the present moment, so far as in me 
 lies, I am of this number, and so shall remain, should I address you 
 any other letter in the future. I come not to petition you for bene- 
 fices, not to speak to you about any interests of my own, but of yours. 
 And with good truth may I call that your interest, which is the inter- 
 est of the whole church, the guidance and administration of which 
 God has now set before you." After reminding the pope of the com- 
 pass and extent of his duties growing out of this relation of his to the 
 church, he adds : " It will, however, be required of you from the 
 Lord, whose vicar you are, to give an account of so much the more, 
 as you and your predecessors have taken on your shoulders of your 
 own will, additional burdens besides what were long ago imposed ,on 
 you by the Lord and the church ; as you by setting aside the custom 
 of election to the bishoprics and other church dignities, and by taking 
 away from all patrons the right of collation, have made the distribu- 
 tion of ecclesiastical offices, in all the grades, dependant on your will. 
 Whether this was for your happiness, you must judge for yourself ; 
 but whether it serve for the well being of the church, is a question 
 the discussion of which would occupy too much space for a letter." 
 From these words it is easy to see — what accords with other declara- 
 tions of Clemangis — that he, like the other men of the Paris univer- 
 sity who favored reform, considered some limitation of the papal power, 
 which had brought everything within its vortex, — a limitation of this 
 power in the guidance of the church, — as a thing calculated to promote 
 the interest of the pope, by freeing him from responsibilities which he 
 was in no condition to meet, as well as the good of the church itself. 
 How important an object it seemed in his own mind, that the pope 
 should be placed in contact with noble and free-hearted men, appears 
 from the fact that he particularly recommended to him in this letter. 
 
66 PAPACY AND CHURCH COXSTITUTIOX. 
 
 Pierre d'AIlly, then chancellor of the university of Paris. He de- 
 scribes him as a man greatly distinguished by his knowledge, his 
 character, and his zeal for the unity of the church ; a man -whose 
 virtues had drawn upon him the hatred of many.^ We will here 
 mention, by the way, an incident characteristic of Clemangis and his 
 relations to Avignon. He had sent this letter to his friends at the 
 court in Avignon, requesting them to place it in the hands of the 
 pope ; but these friends had found it necessary to expunge many 
 parts of it. The letter appeared to them too bold ; they interpreted 
 it as a want of respect, that he should address the pope in the singular 
 number ; the encomiums on Peter d'Ailly, whose free and noble spirit 
 would not be likely to make him a favorite at the court of Avignon, 
 they thought overdrawn, so they had taken the liberty to alter the 
 letter according to their own will ; for example, to leave out the whole 
 passage where Clemangis warns the pope against flattery, since even 
 this seemed to them hardly consistent with the respect due to the 
 pope. As a matter of course, the letter, as Clemangis complains, was 
 robbed by these arbitrary omissions and alterations, of its true mean- 
 ing. Now, had they presented the letter in this mutilated form, they 
 might thus at least have shown their good intentions towards their 
 friend ; but by putting, as they did, the mutilated letter into the 
 pope's hands along with the original, they may only have intended 
 by such a course to shield themselves from any charge of disrespect 
 towards the pope in transmitting to him so bold a letter, or they 
 may, as Clemangis suspected, have intended to make the writer 
 himself appear in an unfavorable light. At any rate they must have 
 been much more intent on their own interest than on that of their 
 friend. Clemangis bitterly blames this proceeding of his friends. " It 
 is the pernicious distemper of these times, — he says — and particu- 
 larly of the place you live in, Avignon, to suppose that truth cannot 
 please unless it appears decked out in ornaments and concealed by 
 flattery ; that if it be presented naked and with freedom, it must offend 
 everybody and stir up against it anger or ridicule. No wonder then 
 that you have contracted a taint from the customs of the place and 
 the time." 2 At all events, that solicitude of theirs was unfounded ; 
 and if they proposed to themselves any such object as those just men- 
 tioned, they were disappointed. Benedict could not have been dis- 
 pleased with Clemangis for speaking so freely. This honest freedom 
 probably led him to entertain a still greater liking for the writer. 
 Benedict succeeded in persuading Clemangis to enter into his own 
 service, thereby gaining the double advantage of depriving the al- 
 liance of the more liberal parties at Paris of the talents of so good a 
 man, and of turning these talents to the benefit of his own cause. 
 Through the mediation of the friends of Clemangis at Avignon, the 
 latter was induced to accept the office of papal secretary. 
 
 Doubtless the pope, who was observant of the change taking place 
 in the culture of the times, wished to secure the better style of Cle- 
 
 ' Ep. 2, Nic. de Clemangis opp. cd. ' Ep. 3. pag. 12. 
 Lydius, epp. pag. 6 — 10. 
 
NICHOLAS OF CLEMANGIS. 07 
 
 mangis which corresponded to the more refined taste now beginnlnn' to 
 prevail, for his correspondence and public declarations ; and the consi- 
 deration which Clemangis offers as a reason why he could not be fitted 
 for such an office, namely, that he could not alter his habit of writing 
 into a common chancery style, may have been, in the view of the 
 pope, an additional reason for wishing him to become his secretary. 
 llence, when Clemangis mentioned this difficulty, the pope simply 
 requested him to retain the style to which he was accustomed. Cle- 
 mangis, by personal inclination, had no particular fondness for the 
 curial service, or the life at court. He had already decHned many 
 offers of the same kind, which had been held out to him by princes. 
 He could not but have many objections therefore to make, at first, to 
 this new proposal : — his habits of freedom, his disinclination to the 
 court-life, his physical weakness, and incapacity to endure any great 
 degree of labor. But the pope bade his friends reply that he should 
 lose none of his freedom, but rather obtain more than have less than 
 he enjoyed before ; that in the labors imposed on him due regard should 
 ever be had to his ability and his incHnation. So Clemangis deter- 
 mined to accept the place, and his further acquaintance with the 
 court at Avignon, instead of producing any change in his feelings 
 towards Benedict, seems rather to have confirmed him in his first good 
 opinion of the pope, and in the friendly regards which he had for 
 him.i jjg gayg Q^- ^i-^Q court at Avignon : '' While I would not say 
 that it is free from all vices, I must still own that there was greater 
 decency of behavior, more dignity and self-respect in outward man- 
 ners, than I have ever witnessed in the courts of secular princes." 
 Certainly, we must regard this as a singular statement, if we compare 
 it with the picture which Petrarch in his letters has drawn of the 
 court at Avignon ; yet from the language of Clemangis himself, it 
 may be gathered that the court at Avignon was not of the character 
 which might be expected from the attendants on a pope. He speaks 
 only by way of comparison ; and thus much at least may be true, that 
 Benedict was favorably distinguished in this respect from several of 
 his predecessors, and endeavored to give a corresponding dignity of 
 manners ^ to his court.'^ In the next place, it is clear, from what Cle- 
 mangis himself says respecting his relations at Avignon, that the pope 
 by the indulgence with which he treated him, took a strong hold on 
 his affections and bound him to gratitude.^ No labor was imposed on 
 him, until he was first consulted, whether it was agreeable to him ; 
 and if he had scruples about engaging in a matter of business, because 
 it stood in some collision with his French interests, regard was had to 
 these scruples.'^ Thus, with Clemangis, his personal regard for Bene- 
 
 Ep. 14, p. 57. the care with which he was treated during 
 
 ' Also Theodoric of Niem, papal cham- a sickness at Avignon, 
 berlain at the Koman court, says of Bene- •• In the 42d letter he cites a case, where 
 
 diet : Praeterea Ucet dictus Petrus de Lu- two cardinals had proposed to him in the 
 
 na grayitatem pontificalis officii et quid name of the pope to draw up a writing in 
 
 ageret ipso Bonifacio longe melius intelli- favor of a man who had been condemned 
 
 geret. De schism. 2. c. 33. by the parliament of Paris. He had ur- 
 
 ^ Epist. 14. He boasts particularly of gently entreated that he might be let oif 
 
68 PAPACY A2sD CnURCn CONSTITUTION. 
 
 diet went with the opinion he had formed respecting the condition of 
 the church, to determine his course of action under these circumstan- 
 ces. Let us Hsten to his own language. How profoundly he under- 
 stood the corruption of the church in his times, we see from some 
 remarks of his in a letter to a friend, lie supposed that he witness- 
 ed in his times a greater depravation of manners than had existed in 
 any pagan period, and that this could not be so, if even but a dead 
 faith ^ 2i Jides inf o?- mis, st\\\ existed. *' Not love alone" — says he, 
 " but the mere fides informis among us has become so withered, that 
 the words of our Lord would fitly apply to our times : Shall I when 
 I come, find faith on the earth ? " He thinks that vice could not so 
 unblushingly stalk abroad, if the doctrines of an eternal life, of future 
 happiness and miser\'', of a future judgment, really found faith among 
 men. " The articles of faith" — says he — " are accounted but 
 fables." He thought too, that in this dead faith might already be 
 discerned a turning; over to conscious infidelitv.^ What he savs of the 
 general state of things in France, ^ that the depravation of morals in 
 that country was the fountain of all other evils, and that reconciliation 
 with God must prepare the way for the restoration of civil peace, all 
 this is, without doubt, to be applied also, as he means it, to the evils 
 of the church of his time, and to the means for their cure. " What 
 sort of good " — says he — *' can we hope for, if we remain separat- 
 ed from the true source of all good. Out of what inferior stream can 
 a blessing flow to us, if we are cut off from the fountain-head of all 
 blessing 't " Accordingly he declares that the great thing needed 
 was reconciliation to Grod. And because this was the great need, 
 everything else, which was undertaken with passionate party-zeal for ' 
 the restoration of peace to the church, appeared to him vain. In a 
 letter of later date addressed to Pope JBenedict,^ he says : " Not 
 without some peril to myself have I written a great deal to you and 
 others about the adjustment of this hateful schism ; for I was careful 
 to exhort all who engaged in this holy work, according to the measure 
 of my knowledge, to see to it, that they set themselves about so great 
 a matter, than which a greater has not been undertaken within the 
 memory of man, in the right manner, with a pure heart, with disinter- 
 ested zeal, with true charity, and with becoming modesty ; not with 
 arrogant pride, not with an overhasty confidence in the truth of their 
 own opinions, not with selfish longings after temporal honor, or tem- 
 poral advantage, not with zeal merely to accomplish their own objects, 
 not with hatred or ill-will towards any person whatever, not with 
 suspicious jealousy, or persecution of those who think differently." 
 He thought the contrary of all this, then, might be seen in the 
 doings of the several parties of his time, as he himself says : " All 
 this, or most of what has mingled in the proceedings in the course 
 
 from this, because he could do nothing to pope*s service. From that moment not a 
 
 the prejudice of his king and country, word more was ever heard on the subject. 
 
 One of the cardinals consented, but the 1*. 130. 
 
 other threatened him by saying, the ' Ep. 73, p. 210. 
 
 pope would command it. '• Well." said ' Ep. 77, p. 233. 
 
 (Jlcmangis, '* I would prefer leaving the •'' Ep. 13, p. 51. 
 
NICHOLAS OF CLEMANGIS. 69 
 
 "which this affair' has taken, disturbs it frightfully and ruins it alto- 
 gether. By these means, the situation of things is not only rendered 
 -wholly unsuitable for the restoration of peace ; but commotions still 
 more violent, wounds stiU more severe, and the germs of new divisions 
 are brought upon the church, which suffers grievously enough already 
 from this wound ; and unless the grace of the heavenly bridegroom 
 interfere, she must plunge into the gulf of destruction." With this 
 asrrees also what he wrote to the kini^ of France, when the renuncia- 
 tion of Pope Benedict had now lasted four years.' "You see what the 
 refusal of obedience, sought after with so much eagerness, has availed. 
 It was said, respect and obedience to the pope was the chief obstacle 
 in the way of restoring unity to the church ; and if this were re- 
 moved, peace would speedily ensue. This the whole body of the 
 clergy asserted with the greatest vociferation. Behold, this obstacle 
 has now been for four years removed, by subtraction of obedience to 
 the pope ; and still we perceive no signs of church union. Nay, the 
 hopes formerly cherished have either wholly vanished, or at least their 
 fulfilment is put off to an incalculable distance. It was promised, as 
 a thing which would most certainly take place, that as soon as men 
 heard of the subtraction by this kingdom, other states would imme- 
 diately follow her example." " When this most inauspicious subtrac- 
 tion " 2 — says he — " had been extorted from you by these intrigues, 
 messengers were sent out in all directions, either those who had them- 
 selves been concerned in bringing about the subtraction,3 or those 
 whom they pleased to select for this purpose." Every thing was 
 done to spread the report of this proceeding far and wide, and to stir 
 up others to imitation." "Behold" — he then adds — "who fol- 
 lows your example ? All hold back, and not without good reason, 
 from subtracting obedience to him whom they reverenced as Christ's 
 vicegerent upon earth." It appears to him a great inconsistency, to 
 refuse the obedience due to him who has been recognized as the le- 
 gitimate pope. He notices it, again, as a remarkable fact, that the 
 other princes, instead of being induced to follow the example of 
 France, had rather attached themselves with a more persevering de- 
 votion to the acknowledged pope. He says, in particular of the other 
 party : " They are excessively elated against us, ever since they 
 heard that we are so divided amongst ourselves about our own pope ; 
 and they are expecting no other result from these quarrels among 
 ourselves, than that after we have deserted our pope, theirs will ob- 
 tain the victory." He complains in this letter of the harsh treatment 
 of the pope in keeping him closely shut up in his castle. He complains 
 that nothing more was now done for the restoration of unity, but men 
 were only on the anxious look out to defeat any attempt to effect a 
 reconciliation with the pope ; that no one was allowed to visit him, 
 without first underi]foin2: a thorouo;h search to see that he carried no 
 letters. Now, since it was manifest that the renunciation of the pope 
 did not in the least contribute to the restoration of peace to the 
 
 ^ Ep. 17, p. 63. ^ Ipsimet subtractionis artifices. 
 
 * Infaustissinia obedientiae subtractio. 
 
70 PAPACY AXD CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 church, M'hile they still persisted, however, in venting their rage on 
 him, it might be seen, that under the pretext of seeking the peace of 
 the church, their real object had been, from the beginning, enmity 
 to the pope's person. He defended the pope's conduct, and main- 
 tained that from the first he had declared himself ready to enter into 
 conference with his antagonist, the first step necessary to any agree- 
 ment ; and to adopt any other means, which could lead to the res- 
 toration of church unity ; that he had in fact three years before de- 
 clared himself willing to abdicate. i " Of what use was it," he said, 
 " to think of forcing the pope to abdicate, when it meant nothing 
 except as a free act." It was presupposed, therefore, that the pope 
 should first be restored to Uberty. He held that the most necessary 
 thing, after restoring the pope to liberty, was the restoration of unity 
 in their own party ; then they should endeavor to unite on some 
 measures to be taken in common with the other party. It was not by 
 strife, by revilings, and the turmoil of the passions, that a restoration 
 of church unity in any form was to be expected ; but a negotiation for 
 peace should be conducted in a peaceful and quiet way, and in a spirit 
 of gentleness. All pains should be taken to pursue the object with a 
 humble, sober distrust, each man of his own judgment, and not with 
 proud contempt of what others might think on the subject. " For the 
 Lord often reveals his mysteries and his counsels, among which seem 
 to belong also the restoration of unity to his church, to babes and 
 sucklings, while he hides them from the wise and prudent, that no 
 flesh may glory in his presence." In his letter to Pope Benedict 
 XI II., 2 where too he complains of the impure motives of men anxious 
 only to have their own opinion prevail with regard to the best way of 
 restoring the peace of the church, he expresses his surprise that 
 learned theologians — men of the church, could consent to abandon 
 everything to the arbitrary will of the secular power ; he foresees the 
 mischievous consequences which must result from such a course. 
 The experiences to which Clemangis adverts, had influence also on 
 others who had expected more than he had ever done from that 
 renunciation of the pope ; and now, when Benedict, set at large from 
 his closely invested castle by the aid of an Arragonese nobleman, 
 re-opened on a more free footing the negotiations with France, it was 
 more easy to come to an agreement ; and, in the year 1401, a partial 
 return took place of the Gallic Church to the obedience of the pope, 
 the latter having pledged himself to resign the papal dignity under 
 the three following contingencies, that the other pope died, that he 
 voluntarily resigned, or that he was deposed. 
 
 When in the year 1406, pope Innocent VII. died at Rome, the car- 
 dinals of that party were full of zeal to bring the church back to unity. 
 Among the people there was but one wish, which could not longer be 
 resisted. They were weary of the long-continued artful tricks, by 
 which the popes of the two parties had contrived to keep up the 
 schism. The question now arose among the cardinals whether they 
 
 * Page 65. ' Epist. 13, p. 51. 
 
GREGORY XII. 71 
 
 ought not to abstain from a now election, and unite with the other 
 party at Avignon, for the purpose of choosing a pope who should be 
 universally acknowledged, inasmuch as Benedict had been compelled 
 to aixree that in case of the death of his antagonist in Rome, he also 
 would immediately abdicate. Thus an end would be put to the schism 
 at once. It could not but be very evident to all, that it was only by 
 declining to investigate the claims of the two parties, that any union 
 was jMx^sible. Thus wrote the well-known Leonardo Bruno of Arezzo, 
 (Aretin) famous as one of the restorers of ancient literature, and at 
 this time secretary to the papal court at Rome, in a report which he 
 drew u;-) relatinir to the events at that time in Rome. " We can ex- 
 pect no end to the division, as long as men are disposed to quarrel 
 about their rights, especially as this matter has no judge but God him- 
 self."i Among the cardinals there was much contention on the point; 
 and they would have resolved to abstain from the new election, had 
 they not been afraid that they should give up something to the claims 
 of the other party, or had they not felt a certain mistrust, not alto- 
 gether unfounded, in the sincerity of Pope Benedict. Accordingly the 
 resolution prevailed that they should proceed to a new election, but 
 that each of the cardinals should bind himself by oath, in a more sol- 
 emn manner than before, that in case of his election to the papal dig- 
 nity, he would employ it singly for the purpose of healing the schism ; 
 that he would use every effort to effect a union for the promotion 
 of this object with the other pope, and abdicate as soon as the latter 
 would do likewise. Each cardinal pledged himself moreover that 
 in case he should be elected pope, he would undertake to do no- 
 thing except what was required for that end, Avould nominate no new 
 cardinals except Avhen this was necessary in order that the number of 
 the cardinals belonging to this party might be equal to that of the 
 other. Since the cardinals then regarded the present election as only 
 a provisional one, only a means to prepare the way for electing a pope 
 who should be recognized as such by all, and for the utter extirpation 
 of the schism, they directed their attention in choosing a candidate, 
 not so much to any question about his other gifts and qualifications, as 
 to the point of gaining in him a man free from ambition and the love 
 of power, and full of zeal for the welfare and concord of the church. 
 Great zeal for these objects had been manifested thus far by Cardinal An- 
 gelo Coravio of Venice, a man celebrated for his habits of austere devo- 
 tion ; and as he was eighty years old, it was the less to be expected 
 that standing on the verge of the grave he would sacrifice the good of 
 the church to the gratification of his ambition for a few brief moments. 
 He called himself Gregory XII. After his accession to ofiice he re- 
 peated the same assurances, which he had already expressed as a car- 
 dinal. What expectations were formed of him, may be seen from the 
 following words of Aretin written about this time, who describes him as 
 a man of antique severity and holiness. " He talks of the unity of 
 
 ' Ncque enim finem ullum inveterati ea causa judicem nullum haberet. Leon, 
 schisniatis sperare licebat, si de jure dis- Bruni Aretini epp. 1, 2, 3. Hamb. 1724. 
 cepiarctur ; pvaesertim cum praeter deum' 8vo. 
 
72 PAPACY AND CHURCH COXSTITUTIO!^. 
 
 the church — says Aretin — after this style; that if there were no 
 other way, he would go on foot, staff in hand, to bring it about. We 
 must look to his actiona ; and certainly there is good hope, on ac- 
 count of the singular integrity of the man. More than this, we find 
 on the question of union, such an agreement of feeling among all, and 
 the expectations of all so intensely raised, that if he were disposed to 
 delay, they would in no wise permit it."^ It is plain from these words 
 of Aretin, that however strong the reasons might seem to be for trust- 
 ing Gregory, still the disappointments which had been so often expe- 
 rienced created a feeling of uncertainty. 
 
 According to another eye-witness, the pontifical chamberlain, Theo- 
 doric of Niem, a German, the pope professed to his confidential friends, 
 that it should be no fault of his, if the union were not brought about, 
 in some place or other, even though it should be far from Rome. If 
 he could not have galleys, he was ready to set sail in a small skiff; or 
 if the way were better by land, and he had no carriage and horses, he 
 would not be kept back by that, but plod his way on foot, staff in 
 hand.2 When Gregory held the first assembly of his cardinals, he 
 still expressed openly the same zeal for the restoration of peace to the 
 church. Some months after, on being requested to bestow certain 
 benefices, he declined, observing that he had not been chosen pope for 
 that^ but simply to put an end to the schism ; and so great was the 
 longing after this, that the people of the Roman court, whose interests 
 were touched by such a repulsive answer, still rejoiced at it, because 
 they regarded it as a sure pledge that the pope was in earnest about 
 that which was so often on his lips. In making known his resolution 
 by embassies to all the princes, he entered with great zeal into negoti- 
 ations also with Pope Benedict, who was bound by his solemn promise ; 
 and still had to fear a powerful party of free-spirited men in France, 
 particularly at the university of Paris. The envoys of Gregory con- 
 ferred with Benedict at Marseilles where they mutually agreed that the 
 city of Savona was the most eligible place on account of its situation, for 
 a meeting and conference between the two popes ; and that they should 
 both repair thither on Michaelmas or all Saints' day, 1407, for the 
 purpose of abdicating in common. At Paris the delegates of Gregory, 
 on returning with this agreement, were received with great demonstra- 
 tions of joy. It seemed now that the long-desired end of the schism 
 could not be far off. Gregory was extolled as an angel of peace. 
 Only Benedict could not be trusted. When the contract, overladen 
 with provisos, and drawn up by Benedict, was placed before Gregory, 
 with a smile on his lips, he expressed surprise that so many stipula- 
 tions had been thought necessary, of which not one was needed here, 
 since everything was so honorably meant.-* Perhaps Gregory, at the 
 beginning, was really of the temper which he expressed ; but of a 
 truth that temper was soon changed, and what may at first have been 
 80 honorably meant, was afterwards but the language of disguise and 
 
 ' Ihid. p. 41. =* L.3, c. 12 fin. 
 
 ' Theodorici a Niem de schismate, 1. 3, * L. 3, c. 13. 
 c. 6. 
 
GREGORY Xri. 73 
 
 hypocrisy. Gregory's numerous relations came together in Rome ; 
 and there they endeavored to turn his papal dignity to their own pri- 
 vate advantage. They Avorked upon Gregory, till they made him 
 alter his mind, and consent to sacrifice the good of the church to the 
 ijiterests of the nephews whom he ought to provide for. Already in 
 April, 1407, Aretin wrote : " Some friends and kinsmen of the pope, 
 ■who flocked around him upon his coming to the throne, have begotten 
 in many the suspicion, that they are endeavoring to bend his hitherto 
 upright will." 1 In addition to this came the political movements of 
 king Ladlslaus of Naples, who, in opposition to French interests, was 
 endeavoring to obtain for himself the crown of Sicily, against the pre- 
 tensions of Prince Louis of Angers, and wished to secure Gregory as 
 an ally, having reason to fear a pope favorable to the interests of 
 France. He must do everything, therefore, to prevent Gregory from 
 resigning his post. In June, the pope appeared before the cardinals 
 and other dignitaries, and openly avowed his purpose, hitherto only to 
 be conjectured from occasional signs : for, although he had agreed 
 ■with his rival, that they should both join in a common abdication at 
 Savona, yet he was now only looking round for some way of escape. 
 He declared that he had no means for making the journey by land, 
 and that he could not venture to go by sea on board the ships of the 
 Genoese, on account of the hostilities between the Genoese and the 
 Venetians ; that he must by all means have Venetian galleys, but he 
 could not obtain them to proceed so far as that port. The cardinals 
 being very much dissatisfied with the pope, and proceeding to urge 
 upon him the fulfilment of his agreement, he caused his difficulties to 
 be laid before twenty-four eminent jurists, in the expectation that his 
 known wishes would determine them to pronounce him free from the 
 obligation. But he found himself mistaken. Still he could not even 
 then be induced to alter his intentions. He pretended that those 
 jurists had been Influenced by their regard for the cardinals, to decide 
 contrary to the truth. 2 
 
 During these transactions, an event took place, which seemed calcu- 
 lated to deliver the pope from his embarrassment, and furnish him with 
 a good reason for not keeping his word. King Ladlslaus of Naples, in 
 combination with the Colonna party in Rome, accompanied by the mal- 
 contents from the city, was approaching with a hostile force. Aretin 
 says, that the pope declared at first that all reports about this had 
 been got up by malicious persons ; but the opponents of the pope per- 
 ceived when the truth turned out to be like the report, that what he 
 had said was a mere pretence, and accused him of a secret under- 
 standing with that ally. The unexpected attack made by these troops 
 at midnight, excited in Rome the utmost alarm and confusion. The 
 pope took refuge in the castle of St. Angelo. The stratagem, how- 
 ever, was defeated. The Romans succeeded in expelling the enemy 
 from the city. After this incident, Aretin wrote : '' Many believe 
 that this thing was purposely arranged by the pope, in order that the 
 
 ' Aretini epp. 1. 2, 6. ' Theod. a Niem, 1. 3, c. 17. 
 
 VOL. V. 7 
 
74 PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 whole business of uniting the church might fall through, which would 
 have been the issue, had the king been successful. We bj no means 
 believe this of the pope, but we have no doubt of the guilt of Jus klns- 
 meny i The honest, free-spirited German historian, Theodoric of 
 jN^iem, also an eye-witness, looks upon the whole as a plot of Gregory, 
 hatched up to defeat the negotiations for peace. Speaking of the 
 pope's flight to the castle of St. Angelo, he says : " This he did from 
 design, and with the intent that if the enemy got the upper hand, 
 and proceeded to besiege him in that castle, he might have it to plead 
 as an excuse for his non-appearance at the first and second terms that 
 he was deprived of his liberty." 
 
 And lie concludes his account of the results brought about by the 
 understanding which, as he supposes, existed between the two allies, 
 who were bound together by a common political interest, with the 
 beautiful words so often verified in history with regard to events by 
 which great and important changes are supposed to be prepared : 
 *' But man's craft avails nothing in opposition to the divine counsels. "a 
 
 In proportion as the crafty pope Benedict found that his rival had 
 no serious intention of fulfilling the agreement, in the same proportion 
 he manifested the utmost readiness to fulfil it faithfully on his part, as 
 he could plainly foresee, that nothing would come of it, and he now 
 had it in his power to throw the whole blame on Gregory. At the 
 first-appointed time he came to Savona. But Gregory travelled 
 slowly ; first to Yiterbo. Then, in September, he came to Siena ; 
 but instead of getting to Savona, either at the first or the second 
 term, he remained at Siena from September to January. He had 
 great skill in inventing reasons for not complying with the invitations 
 of the cardinals, and of the envoys coming to him from all directions 
 for the purpose of urging him to end the schism. There was no route 
 which for him would be a safe one. lie got up processions to implore 
 divine grace for the promotion of the peace of the church ; grant- 
 ed indulgences to such as took part in them ; sent letters of indulgence 
 to those in all the countries that acknowledged him, who by their in- 
 tercessions helped on the restoration of peace to the church, hoping 
 thus to deceive the multitude. The Franciscans who were his friends, 
 found it necessary at mass to justify the procrastination of the pope in 
 their sermons, and to tell the people that he could not make the jour- 
 ney to Savona without exposing himself and the cardinals to danger. 
 Finally the pope arrived at Lucca. From this place Aretin wrote a 
 letter relating to the negotiations for peace : "After we had arrived at 
 Lucca, numerous messengers passed to and fro ; but nothing is as yet 
 accomplished, nor has a single step been taken which seems to me cal- 
 culated to inspire the least hope. In the other pope there is no hon- 
 esty of purpose whatsoever ; though he disguises his motives with won- 
 derful adroitness, so as to deceive the unwary. But believe me, there 
 is nothing sound about him ; for if there were, what is there to prevent 
 
 ' Aretin. ejip. 1. 2, 7. tutia non suffragatur humana. L. 3, c. 18, 
 
 ' Sed contra divinam ordinationem as- tin. 
 
GREGORY Xir. AND BENEDICT XIII. 75 
 
 the object from being accomplished ? For if either one of the two were 
 really willing to do what he has sworn to do, the other would be obliged 
 to fulfil his part whether willing or not willing. For what excuse or 
 evasion could he have ? But now when both delay, one furnishes the 
 other with means of evasion and excuse. Our pope is of a straight- 
 forward, simv)le nature ; but a good and simple man is easily deceived 
 by dishonest knaves. For some who are hoping to obtain honorable 
 posts from him have contrived to get hold of him by battery. These 
 fill liis mind with idle fears, and often bring him round again when 
 he intends to do what is right. As the present tone of feeling is, I 
 apprehend trouble ; for more acrimony of hatred, more violent indigna- 
 tion could not exist."! We see from these words, dictated by the im- 
 mediate impression of the moment, the high state of excitement pro- 
 duced among the attendants on the pope at Lucca, by these under- 
 handed arts, and the fears that were entertained that some viojent out- 
 break w^ould give vent to the suppressed feelings of indignation. And 
 so it happened, that in the middle of the fasts a Carmelite, preaching 
 before the pope, the cardinals and the foreign envoys assembled here 
 on the business of the union, felt impelled, turning round to the pope, 
 to exhort him urgently that he would spare no effort to hasten the 
 union, reminding him of the assurances which he had so repeatedly 
 given. Two nephews of the pope, who had great influence with him, 
 were so exasperated at this, that they caused the preacher to be 
 dragged out of the church and cast into prison, where he languished 
 for many days, and a worse fate would have befallen him had not pow- 
 erful friends interposed in his behalf. He was forbidden to preach 
 any more ; and Gregory, to secure himself for the future against being 
 disturbed by such honest admonitions, ordered that no person should 
 thereafter be alloAved to preach before him, unless his discourse had 
 first been examined by some one of his immediate attendants.'^ The 
 pope was in no want of men, such as his nephews, whose selfish inte- 
 rests would naturally prompt them to confirm him in his designs against 
 the union. Among these, belonged in particular, one of those indi- 
 viduals whose lives afibrd the most striking testimony to the monstrous 
 corruption of the church of this time, — a Franciscan who, sunk in 
 crime, had been led by some outward occasion or other, in the later 
 years of his manhood, to become a monk, and whom king Ladislaus 
 employed on his political errands, and called his father confessor. 
 Through him, the king had carried on his negotiations with pope Gre- 
 gory, and the latter always kept him near his person. Theodoric of 
 Niem relates, that a citizen of Lucca with whom this Franciscan resid- 
 ed while the pope w^as stopping at that city, told him he never met 
 anvwhere with so bad a man, nor would he suffer him to remain in his 
 house, were he not compelled to do so by fear of the governing author- 
 ities in Lucca.3 The two popes approached a few steps nearer toge- 
 ther ; for when Gregory arrived at Lucca, Benedict advanced to Porto 
 
 ' Aretin. epp. 1, 2, 10. '^ Theod. a Niem de schism, lib. 3, c. 15. 
 
 ^ Theod. a Niem de schism, lib. 3, c. 25. 
 
76 PAPACY AND CHURCH COXSTITUTIOX. 
 
 Venere. And yet it seemed as If thej were never to meet. In vain, 
 nefrotiations were entered into respecting: a place of interview, with 
 which both parties could be satisfied. None was to be found safe 
 enough for both. Gregory feared the hostile power at sea; and dared 
 not approach too near the coast. Benedict could not venture too far 
 from the coast, as he stood in fear of ambuscades by land.^ Aretin, 
 an eye-witness of these evasive tricks, writes : " Thus, one of the 
 popes, like a marine animal, was afraid to trust himself on dry land, 
 the other, like a land animal, shuddered at sight of the waves."! But 
 what aiided to the vexation was this, that accordins; to the common be- 
 lief there was no danger, either to the one if he ventured on dry land, 
 nor to the other if he visited the coast. And it was the general opin- 
 ion, that they both clearly understood the same thing, but hypocriti- 
 cally pretended fear, for the purpose of cheating men out of their ear- 
 nest expectations. Hence there were loud complaints, and men be- 
 gan already to speak openly against these proceedings. All were fill- 
 ed with indignation, that persons of their age, for both were past sev- 
 enty, for the sake of sitting a few years in the papal chair, should 
 put themselves bevond all fear of God and the iud;2;ment of mankind. 
 Aretm takes notice of the impression which this conduct of the two 
 popes produced on the general mind. "What — says he — could 
 hap})en to us more shameful and more dishonorable than that the two 
 parties, after having shortly before voluntarily fixed upon a place for the 
 restoration of union among christians, should immediately thereupon, 
 when the expectations of all were intensely raised, show an unwilling- 
 ness to come to the spot ? Some one may say, dost thou venture to write 
 this, when thou belongest among the pope's confidants? Yes. The 
 case is so; for why should I now flatter him, and feign as if I thought 
 otherwise : for I am one of the Christians and one of the Italians. It 
 grieves me that the former should be defrauded of the union and of 
 peace, and the latter accused of being faithless, and jiromisc-breakers.''^ 
 Gregory at length gave it to be understood, that he no longer 
 had any thoughts of joining with his rival in a common abdication. 
 He made trial of other arts. lie put forth on the sixth of July 
 the proclamation for a general council, whose place of assembling he 
 would more distinctly announce. As a reason for this he alleged 
 the experience which had been gained, that a common abdication was 
 a thing impracticable ; the comicil, however, included in itself all 
 other means of restoring church concord. At the same time he assert- 
 ed, in defiance of the freer tendencies now springing up, that it 
 belonged to the pope alone to convoke a general council ; that one 
 assembled without his permission was but a conciliabulu/n, and should 
 be considered as altogether destitute of authority.3 This council was 
 at a later period actually assembled at A(juileia, but could do nothing 
 more than play an insignificant farce. The cardinals were not in- 
 
 ' Ita alter quasi aquaticum animal in ' L. c. 
 
 siccum exjre, alter quasi terrestre undas ' Tlicodoric a Nicm dc schism, lib. 3, c. 
 
 aspieere perhorrebat. Arctini cpp. lib. 2, 36. 
 13. 
 
GREGORY Xri. AND BENEDICT XIII. 77 
 
 clined to let themselves be mocked any longer by the pope ; to 
 share the disgrace and the exasperated feeling which he must ne- 
 cessarily encounter. Matters were coming to an open contest bc- 
 ^tween them and the pope. Gregory, unmindful of the oath which 
 he had taken, was desirous of appointing four new cardinals, partly 
 for the purpose of promoting his nephews and favorites, partly that 
 he might procure for himself, in these creatures, some support against 
 the older cardinals ; but the latter manifested violent opposition and 
 declined to acknowledge, as their colleagues, the persons who, in spite 
 of them, were nominated by the pope. As they had the worst to fear 
 from the obstinate pope, and wished to act with more freedom in some 
 other place, where they could be safer, they fled to Pisa.^ 
 
 As to Pope Benedict, he was made more haughty by the weakness 
 of his rival. But he could meet with as little success as the latter in 
 carrying out his designs. He had to sustain a still severer contest 
 with the more liberal spirit in France. The king sent him a letter, 
 threatening, that unless the pope came to some agreement with his op- 
 ponent to restore concord to the church by the festival of Ascension 
 of the following year, France would again renounce him and declare 
 herself neutral. Benedict replied to this by a series of violent steps. 
 He issued a bull threatening the ban and the interdict. This was 
 publicly torn in pieces, and the pope, at an assembly of the uni- 
 versity of Paris, was declared a schismatic and heretic. Proceedings 
 were set on foot against those who had taken part in the drawing up 
 and publication of that bull ; and suspected individuals were violently 
 persecuted. Among these was Clemangis, who continued, it is true, 
 to be a friend of Benedict and dissatisfied with violent measures, as 
 also Gerson was, but who could appeal to the fact that he knew no- 
 thing at all about the steps of Benedict, and also that the bull bore in- 
 ternal evidence of being contrary to his style. 2 The Gallic church 
 separated itself entirely from the pope. Orders were given to the 
 French governor at Genoa to take^ possession of Benedict's person ; 
 but he succeeded in making his escape to his native country, Arragon ; 
 where he played ofi" a similar farce with Gregory, in the convocation 
 of a pretended general council. Eight cardinals of his party repaired 
 to Pisa ; and all who were there assembled, now joined in putting 
 forth a proclamation for a general council in the year 1409, which 
 should put an end to the schism and bring about a reformation of the 
 church in its head and members, and whose place of meeting should be 
 at Pisa. 
 
 Upon this council the eyes of all who had at heart the well being of 
 the church in western Christendom, were directed. Two great prob- 
 lems were to be worked out by that council, of which one could not be 
 worked out without the other ; the long and earnestly desired restoration 
 of concord, and the long and earnestly desired reform of a church cor- 
 rupted and stained with sin in all its parts, and- deeply sunk in world- 
 liness. Everything depended at first on the question, whether the 
 
 * See the account of this afFair in Are- ^ Clemang. ep. 42, p. 129. 
 tin's report, epp. lib. 2, 13. 
 
 7* 
 
78 PAPACY AXD CHURCH COXSTITUTIOX. 
 
 council would proceed with clear consciousness, on the principles 
 of a freer system of ecclesiastical law. It should be conscious that 
 itself constituted the highest representation of the church, since it 
 was called to pass judgment even upon popes ; otherwise it must suc- 
 cumb to their policy, and fail as all previous attempts to do away 
 the schism had failed. But then it was very difficult for the cardinals 
 to emancipate themselves at once from a system of church govern- 
 ment, which had obtained for a long series of centuries, which was in- 
 terwoven into all parts of the church administration, and which up- 
 held itself by its own consistency. It was a contest between an old 
 period and a new one which must break path-way for itself. The 
 men who, with the full consciousness of knowledge, expressed and 
 defended the spirit of the new period, thus exerting an influence 
 on the formation of a new public opinion, had the great merit of 
 preparing the way for a happy issue of the council of Pisa. In this, 
 the university of Paris took the most important place ; and the 
 principal leader of the movement in this university was chan- 
 cellor Gerson ; a man whose influence, both as a writer and a speaker, 
 was preeminently great. Let us first cast a glance, then, at the 
 principles of reform diffused abroad by this writer prior to the com- 
 mencement of the council of Pisa. 
 
 The system of the church Theocracy, such as we have seen evolv- 
 ing itself from the times of the third century, was here by no means 
 abandoned ; but it was to be purified from the heterogeneous elements, 
 which in the course of the middle ages had become mixed up with it, 
 or which had proceeded from the development of the principle once 
 expressed and steadily carried out to its extreme consequences, and to be 
 reduced back again to its original foundation before the middle ages. 
 The externalized conception of the church, as of an organic whole, to 
 be traced up through tlie succession of bishops and the representation 
 of church unity in the Roman church as cathedra Petri to a divine ori- 
 gin, was held fast as one and identical with the essence of Christianity 
 itself. But the conception of this one universal church was placed 
 foremost, as the original and highest idea ; and the authority of a sin- 
 gle head of the church governance was made subordinate to this high- 
 est spiritual power, and very much lowered. Papal absolutism was to 
 be overturned ; the universal church to recover her rights, the author- 
 ity of single bishops, and the independence of single national churches 
 to be restored. Its independent authority was to be secured to the 
 sovereignty of the state. The state was to be emancipated from the 
 tutelage of church Theocracy, which had swallowed up all author- 
 ity into itself. They were essentially the same principles as those 
 winch had already, when the Pseudo-Isidorean decretals first began 
 to claim validity, sent forth from France an influence to counteract the 
 rising power of the popes. Gerson took his departure from a concep- 
 tion of the church and of its unity, which might have conducted him 
 to a more profound and spiritual mode of apprehending the matter. 
 The relation of the church to Christ, as its sole unconditionally neces- 
 sary, invisible head, was that to which at first he gave the chief pro- 
 
gerson's principles of reform. 79 
 
 minence. The essential imitj of the church, as Christ's sim-itual 
 body, the corpus mysticum, reposed solely on union with him, the invi- 
 sible Head, diffusing his life-f^iving influence through the whole. But 
 he presently assumed, that the diffusion of this influence was condi- 
 tioned on the organism of the external church governance founded by 
 Christ himself, whereby the form was prescribed under which alone this 
 spirit could at any time be active. Hence he considered the hierarchy 
 in all its gradations, as a thing immutable, necessary for all times, and 
 so the presence of a visible, ministerial and accidental chief at the 
 head of the church government, appeared to him to be also necessary. 
 Still he supposes that, inasmuch as the church when the papacy is va- 
 cant again produces such a head from herself, and inasmuch as she can 
 in certain moments subsist under the guidance of the one invisible head, 
 without that visible head, so also she has power to pass judgment on popes, 
 to displace them, and may continue to subsist for a time under the 
 guidance of a general council of bishops, which represents her, with- 
 out such a visible head, although the latter as a general thing is ne- 
 cessary to her organism ; and she must ever reproduce such a head from 
 herself. In the case of the exercise of that supreme guidance of the church 
 by the popes, we should distinguish what is essential from what is unessen- 
 tial, what is mutable from what is immutable, what is founded in divine 
 right from what is founded in the letter of a positive law. As the good 
 of the whole is the highest law, and it is only for that the power of the 
 pope subsists, that power may be modified and limited by a general 
 council, as the general good may require at any time. Hence the as- 
 sembling of a general council is not a thing necessarily dependant on 
 the pope alone. In a tract composed at some time prior to the coun- 
 cil of Pisa,' in which he unfolds these principles, he says : " It is from 
 Christ, the Head and bridegroom of the church, the mystical body 
 which is the church, has her origin ; and directly from him she has 
 her power and her authority, so that she may, for the purpose of pre- 
 serving her unity, cause the assembling, in a regular manner, of a ge- 
 neral council, which represents her. This is evident from the words 
 of Christ : AVhere two or three are met together in my name, there 
 am I in the midst of them ; where, it is to be carefully observed, 
 that he does not say in the name of Peter or of Paul, but in my name, 
 thus intimating that wherever the faithful do but assemble, if this be 
 done in Ids name, i. e. in faith on Christ and for the weal of his church, 
 he himself stands by them as an infallible guide." 2 He proves this, 
 again, from the universal law of nature ; for every natural body exerts 
 a natural reaction against whatever threatens to destroy or dissolve it, 
 and if it is an animated body, it combines by a natural necessity all 
 its members and powers for the preservation of its unity and to repel 
 whatever threatens to disintegrate it ; and the same holds good of 
 
 ' Propositiones, utiles ad exterminatio- re, quod ubicunque congrcgantur fideles, 
 
 nem praesentis schismatis per vium con- cum hoc fiat in nomine suo, hoc est in 
 
 cilii generalis. lo. Gersonis opp. ed. Du Christi fide, et pro ecclesiae suae salute, 
 
 Pin. Antw. 1706, torn. II, p. 112, 113. ipse assistit eis tauquam director et infal- 
 
 2 Propositiones, p. 112 : Dans intcllige- libilis rector. 
 
80 PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION^". 
 
 every civil body politic. Accordingly the spiritual body of the church, 
 as the best ordered, may use a similar right for the preservation of its 
 unity and the working off of every schismatic division, as a thing 
 "whereby the original order is disturbed. At a later period, for justi- 
 fiable reasons, this power of the church was so limited, that no coun- 
 cil could be assembled without the authority of the pope. This was 
 done for the purpose of doing honor to the apostoUcal chair, and of 
 counteracting those heretics and schismatics, who sometimes endeav- 
 ored, according to their own caprice, and by the power of secular 
 princes, to convoke councils who would countenance and uphold their 
 errors. But by this modification in conformity to the necessities of 
 the times, the fact was not altered, that this power, in itself considered, 
 ever resides in the church ; for that cannot be annulled by the letter 
 of any positive law, which has its foundation in a natural and divine 
 right ; and the church therefore may, in certain cases, convoke a 
 council without the authority of the pope : for a custom which has 
 been introduced for the good of the church ought not to be observed 
 to the prejudice or great peril of the same. He instances the 
 three following cases in particular : 1, if during a vacancy of the apostolic 
 chair, a heresy or another jyersecution of the church breaks out, which 
 must be counteracted by a council : 2, if in such a case of necessity, or 
 where the manifest interest of the church demands a council, the 
 pope should become insane or fall into heresy, or in any other way 
 should be unfitted for his duty, or should neglect it when invited to do 
 it ; or, thirdly, if several individuals present rival claims to the 
 papal dignity, so tliat the whole church obeys neither of them, and 
 each separately refuses to appear at the summons of one or of both 
 together, as the case seemed to be at the present time. Gerson, in 
 maintaining the necessity only of that one organism in the church 
 which was to be traced to a divine origin, recognized the changes re- 
 sulting from the necessities of each period in all other relations of the 
 church ; as for example, in its relations to the state and to worldly 
 goods ; and he moreover ascribed to the church of his oicn time, in its 
 collective capacity, the right and the duty of undertaking such changes 
 as the well being of the church might peremptorily require. Here 
 there ought to be no binding law ; but the letter of every law must be 
 subservient to the highest law, the weal of the church ; human right 
 must be subordinated to the divine. On these principles, Gerson pro- 
 ceeded from the first amid all the negotiations relating to the doing 
 away of the schism, only leaning to different sides according as he 
 thought he saw danger coming either from positivism pushed to an 
 extreme, or from what appeared to him to be a revolutionary tendency 
 plunging headlong into violent and radical measures. 
 
 Again, the merit of Gerson consisted in this, that he directed atten- 
 tion to the fact that the inward corruption of the church being the 
 source of all other evil and also of the schism, no thorough and last- 
 ing cure of the church could take place without reformation; and that 
 it ought therefore to be a main business of the council to effect this. 
 And he himself points out in his writings and discourses on reform, 
 
gerson's principles of reform. 81 
 
 several particular brandies of ecclesiastical corruption in tlii.'^ periorl, 
 ■which called for correction. From what he sajs on tliis su])joct, \ve 
 are enabled to understand tlie very low condition to whicli the church 
 had f\illen. He invites the bisliops to a more exact performance of 
 church visitations. In making these, they should inform themselves 
 of the character of the parish jtriests, find out whether thej were 
 familiar with the liturgical form of ba|>tism, of the consecration of the 
 Holy Supper, etc. ; because there were many who did not understand 
 these things ; and it was plain, what great scandal and what danger 
 grew out of it ; for unless God mercifully completed what was defective, 
 they could neither baptize nor bestow absolution ; and if they were familiar 
 with these forms, yet they pronounced them in so hasty and inappropriate 
 a manner, that the whole rite was violated thereby. Then they should 
 inquire, whether those priests could repeat the sins, and the articles 
 of faith, and whatever else they ought to know in order to impart, at 
 least, the most general instruction to the communities. It was so little 
 thought possible to preserve strictness in the observance of the laws of 
 priestly celibacy, that Gerson seriously proposed it as a question wor- 
 thy of mature consideration, whether priests living in concubinage 
 must not be tolerated, as were the public prostitutes, to avoid a worse 
 evil, which might arise if they were compelled to separate from their 
 concubines ; now that the number of those living in concubinage had 
 become so great. Against such, the penalty of excommunication was 
 not to be employed, because it could not be carried into effect. If 
 the holy men of ancient times observed an opposite course, yet they 
 had never seen the evil so deep-rooted as it had now become ; and how 
 impossible was it to apply at the present time the ancient severity of 
 church discipline. He asks for the abrogation of ecclesiastical laws 
 of excommunication, which could no longer be enforced ; and which, so 
 long as they continued to exist in letter served only to disquiet the con- 
 science. He objects to the too liglit use of excommunication whereby 
 incredible injury was done to souls, and at length contempt of all di- 
 vine laws superinduced. It should be attempted to find out to what use 
 penance money could be applied ; to ascertain where other ecclesiastical 
 penalties would be more salutary according to the kind and magnitude 
 of the sins committed, and whether the turning of those fines, not to 
 pious objects, but to private emolument, did not give occasion for mur- 
 muring. When all this and the like had been inquired into, the theo- 
 logian who accompanied the bishop in his visitations should preach a 
 sermon adapted to the general intelligence of the laity, avoiding cu- 
 rious questions, and touching only upon such matters as might serve for 
 the improvement of manners and for edification ; moreover the sermon 
 should remind the hearers of the general ground-work of the faith. 
 How ridicule of the saints might keep company with superstition, was 
 shown in that festum fatuorum, a service set up for sport by tho 
 clergy themselves, on the festival of the innocents, the festival of the 
 circumcision of Christ, that of Epiphany, and on the fast days. 
 This abuse had crept in to such an extent, that Gerson proposed 
 it as a serious question, in what way that most ungodly and 
 
82 PAPACY AND CHURCH COXSTITUTIOX. 
 
 foolish custom, which prevailed throughout France, could be abolished, 
 or at least moderated. Finally, he directs attention to the necessity 
 of taking pains for tlie improvement of the schools, holding that it was 
 from the children the reformation of the church must begin — a re- 
 mark often on his lips.' 
 
 "When the council of Pisa was about to be opened, Gerson address- 
 ed to it his Essay on the Unity of the Church,- which he thus 
 begins : '* To those who are about to occupy themselves with the rees- 
 tablishment of concord in the church, one of those who are zealous for 
 this peace of the church wishes them all success in finding a way to 
 this end ! And though he is himself chained and confined at home 
 by necessary business, so that he cannot attend the council, 3^et the 
 word of the Lord is not bound." He defends the authoritv of the council 
 first against objections growing out of the letter of the positive law that 
 a council could not be held without the authority of the pope ; that a 
 person deprived of the papal authority must first obtain his dignity 
 over again ; that those who had renounced obedience to the pope, 
 must be rejected as enemies ; that no man can call the pope to ac- 
 count ; particularly if he has not erred expressly against the articles 
 of faith, as he could be sentenced by no man, and was subject to no 
 one, and could not be a schismatic ; that it was dangerous for the pas- 
 tor to leave his flock as he must do if he abdicated ; that each of the 
 popes had done his utmost for the purification of the church, and was 
 therefore free from fault ; that it was necessary to inquire on which 
 side lay the right and the truth, as without this knowdedge those who 
 had erred could not come to repentance. Against these, he sets up 
 the following principles. As the schism of the church had grown out of 
 a breach with God occasioned by sin, so the correction of bad man- 
 ners could be brought about only by reconciliation with God, the unity 
 of the church only by humility before God, and prayer. How other- 
 wise could men hope for a removal of the schism, if the cause conti- 
 nued to operate, unless it were done by the free grace of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, who is wont to bestow great blessings even on the unde- 
 serving and unthankful ? " But still — he adds — we must be co-work- 
 ers with hini, especially at this moment when the enemy of peace is 
 furious because the return of peace seems nearer." He hints by way 
 of warning, that this enemy would introduce the ^ireatest hindrances 
 for the purpose of prolonging the schism, sowing discord among those 
 who were to labor for the unity of the church, by working ui)on their 
 pride, or exciting covetousncss or envy. He asserts that the church, 
 by divine and natural right, with which no correctly understood posi- 
 tive right could be at variance, may for the purpose of creating for her- 
 self one certain vicegerent of Christ, meet together in a general 
 council representing herself; and this not by the authority of the car- 
 dinals alone, but also by the aid of any prince, or other christian. 
 Human ordinances ought to serve only for the edification, not for tho 
 
 ' RempmoriUio, ibid. p. 109: A pncris ' De unitatc ccclesiae. Ibid. p. 113. 
 vidctiir ineipicudu ecclesiue rclbrmaiio. 
 
gerson's principles of reform* 83 
 
 destruction of the church. The council, for the purpose of brlni^in'^ 
 about that outward union, should proceed so that a sate conduct should 
 first of all be given by tlie princes and others to both individuals con- 
 tending for the papal dignity, in case they were willing to appear be- 
 fore the council to fulfil tlieir oaths. But if they had no confidence in 
 such a guaranty, the abdication should be re(piired of them by dele- 
 gates lawfully invested with full powers to demand it. If they both 
 refused, the council should then proceed, without regard to them, to 
 the election of a universally acknowledged pope. If some, however, 
 should remain obstinately devoted to one of the two popes, and would 
 not follow the judgment of the council, a thing hardl)' to be supposed, 
 then they must see to it each for himself, how this would stand with 
 their own salvation ; the council and its adlierents were free from all 
 responsibility about the schism. If the reformation of the church in 
 its head and its members, without which no thorough eradication of the 
 schism could be effected, should be carried through at the council, still 
 the utmost zeal would be called for, and must be perseveringly employ- 
 ed, lest, by a just judgment of God some worse evil might ensue, if, 
 after the restoration of unity, the church fell back again into the old 
 corruption. 
 
 Gerson affirmed that there could be no positive law, which was ca- 
 pable of being applied to the infinite variety of cases that might occur. 
 All positive laws corresponded to the necessities of particular times ; 
 and the unity of the church could not now be restored, unless men 
 looked rather at the spirit than at the letter of the law, and expounded 
 it according to the eternal laws of divine justice. i 
 
 The council of Pisa proceeded in strict conformity to the principles 
 of the university of Paris, which were every day more widely diffused, 
 and on which too the existence and authority of a council assembled 
 without the pope, and making itself judge over him, altogether de- 
 pended. In the midst of the transactions during the thirteenth ses- 
 sion, appeared an eminent theologian, Master Plaul, who set forth and 
 expounded the principles of the supreme authority of general councils, 
 in a way that commanded universal acquiescence.^ The council was 
 opened by the cardinal Peter Philargi, archbishop of Milan, afterwards 
 nominated pope, with a discourse, in which he impressively described 
 the mischiefs which had arisen from the contest between the two popes. 
 He said : '^ You know how those two wretched men calumniate one 
 another and disgrace themselves by invectives full of rant and fury. 
 Each calls the other antipope, obtruder, antichrist.'' "What violence 
 was done by such language to Christian feeling ; how was right turned 
 into wrong! " For — saj's he — each of them to gain patrons in the 
 world, to make his own party stronger by this or that person, dares not 
 give a repulse to anybody that asks for anything. The man whom one 
 rightly condemns, the other pronounces not bound. And thus all order 
 is turned to confusion." 3 From the evils of the mischievous schism 
 which he pourtrays, he argues the necessity of the assembling of a 
 
 * Quatuor considerationes. P. 119 A. ^ P. 98. 
 
 * H. v.il. Hardt. torn, II. p. 132. 
 
84 •PAPACT AXD CHURCH CONSTITUTION'. 
 
 general council, from wlilch alone the cure was to be expected. Not 
 one of the more ancient councils — he declared — had ever been 
 brouirht together by causes more urj^rent. When, after the third cita- 
 tion, no delegate from the two popes appeared in their defence, they 
 ■were condenuied, first as contumacious, (in contumaciam.) Next, the 
 council declared, in its ninth session, tliat since Gregory and Benedict 
 ha<l been unfaithful to the oaths they had taken on the matter of abdi- 
 cating for the good of the church, all might rightfully refuse to pay 
 them ecclesiastical obedience. Then in the fifteenth session they were 
 declared schismatics and heretics, and deposed from all their ecclesi- 
 astical dignities. All of whatever rank, even kings and emperors, 
 ■were absolved from the oath of obedience given to these popes, and 
 it was forbidden on penalty of the ban to recognize them henceforth as 
 popes, and to obey them as such ; the papal chair should from that 
 moment be considered as vacant. To the protest of the emperor Ru- 
 pert, who was devoted to the cause of Gregory, no regard whatever 
 ■was paid. When, after the eighteenth session, the delegates of Pope 
 Benedict XIIL, escorted by an envoy from the king of Arragon, who 
 ■was an adherent of Benedict appeared, they were received with loud 
 and violent outcries. One protocol reports,^ " a cry rose against them 
 as if they were Jews." When one of the delegates, the archbishop 
 of Taraco, named him as pope, he was interrupted with loud shouts, 
 and the delegates afterwards retired without accomplishing anything. 
 The council had now, as they supposed, resolved one of the problems. 
 By deposing the two popes they had put an end to the schism : so 
 that nothing stood any longer in the way of the election of a uni- 
 versally acknowledged pope. But, in truth, this was so only in 
 appearance ; for Gregory and Benedict had still their adherents ; and 
 if a new pope were to be chosen, he could the less reckon upon a uni- 
 versal acknowledgment, unless by what he did for the good of the 
 church, he was ■^vise enough to gain over the hearts of the rebellious. 
 In this regard, the most important thing was the reformation of the 
 church in capite et membris, which had so long been earnestly desired. 
 That without this, a thorough extirpation of the schism was not to be 
 thought of, had indeed been emphatically testified by such men as 
 D'Ailly, Gerson, and Clemangis. In the sixteenth session, the cardi- 
 nals pledged themselves, that whichever of them should be elected 
 pope, would not break up the council until one of the necessities of the 
 church, a satisfactory reformation in capite et membris^ should be 
 eifected. The cardinals then proceeded to elect a pope, and the 
 choice fell upon the cardinal Peter Philargi, archbishop of Milan. 
 This person, then sixty years old, was born in Candia, while that isl- 
 and stood under the rule of the Venetians. He was of Greek de- 
 scent. Having been early left an or])lian, he was adopted when a 
 boy by the Franciscans ; and care was bestowed upon his education 
 within the order. Thus he became himself a member of it. He had 
 visited the most eminent universities, Oxford and Paris, and was es- 
 
 ' Scssio spccialis, p. 142. 
 
COUNCIL OF PISA. 85 
 
 teemed as a man well-skilled in the scholastic theolo;^y of the day. 
 The account given of him hy tlic free-spirited Theodoric of Niem 
 ■would not lead us to regard him exactly as a man of spiritual temper 
 or life. lie knew nothing else to say of him, except that he liked 
 to enjoy life, and drank strong wine.' He called himself Alexander 
 V. The Parisian Chancellor Gerson, who had been prevented from 
 attending the earlier sessions of the council, still came in time after 
 tlie comj)letion of the pope's election, to preach a discourse before 
 Alexander V., amid the assembled council, in Avhich he confirmed 
 tlie principles on which the council of Pisa had acted, and reminded 
 the pope of his duties to the church.^ He took for his text Acts 1 : 6, 
 and from the words of this passage proceeded to draw the contrast be- 
 tween the actual state of the church and what it should be, as repre- 
 senting the kingdom of God ; and he invited the pope to engage 
 with all zeal in the work of bringing the church to the realization of 
 this idea. He certainly could not have known by what kind of move- 
 ments this papal election had been brought about, nor could he have 
 divined what was to be expected from an election which had been so 
 brought about, when he praised all that had thus far been done by the 
 council as a work of God. The church, he began, sighing under the 
 evils of the schism, had cried out to the Lord : " When wilt thou 
 restore again the kingdom in Israel ? " and this prayer had in part 
 been heard. '' For — says he — from whom comes this your choice ? 
 Comes it not from Christ ? Whence so wonderful a convocation of the 
 council ? Whence the unheard of agreement of men just before con- 
 tending with each other ? Whence so speedy an assemblage of so 
 many bishops and learned men ? Assuredly from God ; who is not a 
 God of confusion but of peace." He next defends the council, as a 
 •work of God, from objections made against its validity. " The pope 
 had not convoked it ; therefore it was but a conventicle. ridiculous 
 and unreasonable judgment." He adverts to the examples of assem- 
 blies occurring in the acts of the apostles, which had not been convok- 
 ed by the apostle Peter ; the example of the general council of Nice, 
 which had not been assembled by the Roman bishop Silvester, but by 
 the Emperor Constantino ; the example of the fifth ecumenical coun- 
 cil, to the meeting of which, as he supposes, the bishops had mutually 
 invited each other. " Were these, then, conventicles ? Be very careful 
 how you assert any such thing. And suppose now — says he 
 — the division among Christians renders it uncertain which of the 
 two rivals they should reverence as the pope ? Suppose the pope, which 
 is a very rare case, should fall into heresy? " He cites the example of 
 Liberius who had subscribed an Ariaii confession of faith, of Marcelli- 
 nus who is said to have offered to idols. Suppose one oppresses 
 Christendom with intolerable burdens ? Dost thou leave us any other 
 remedy against so grievous distempers? I do leave such an one, 
 thou wilt say. I believe it, most assuredly ; for thou wouldst attribute 
 
 ' De schism. 1. 3, c. 51, p. 180: Lihenter ^ Gerson. sermo coram Alexandre, etc. 
 hone ct hiute vivebat, bibcndo ut frequen- Ibid. p. 131. 
 ter vina fbrtia, et delcctabtvtur in illis. 
 
 VOL. V. 8 
 
86 PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 to the church-constitution too great imperfection, and not recognize it 
 as one wholesomely established of God, whose works are all perfect, if it 
 were capable of being attacked by a distemper to which no remedy 
 could be applied. Yet in the cases mentioned no remedy is left, if 
 the church could never come together unless convoked by the pope." 
 He then represents the church as turning to the pope, and addressing 
 him the invitation to restore the kingdom to Israel. He represents her 
 as expressing the hopes he had inspired her with. lie reminds the pope 
 of the obligation to preach the gospel to all nations ; speaks of the 
 Saracens, of the people of India, who needed the restoration of pure 
 doctrine, because they had been so long separated from the church 
 of Rome. He next comes to speak of the Greeks, to whom he ac- 
 knowledges that the Latins were greatly indebted ; and tliinks he may 
 be the more brief on this point, inasmuch as he is speaking before 
 one descended from this nation. He then invites the pope so to 
 direct his efforts that the remains of the schism, the two popes still 
 having their parties, might be destroyed, which could easily be brought 
 about by his zeal and the activity of the princes united with him. He 
 proceeds next to speak of the internal condition of the church. He 
 speaks of the dissolution of ecclesiastical order occasioned by the papal 
 exemptions : describes how the bishops had broke loose from the 
 archbishops, and so again the subordinates of the bishops from their 
 authority. He complains that the monks, who for the purpose of de- 
 voting their life exclusively to works of christian charity and to science, 
 had voluntarily renounced all earthly possessions — ^the mendicants — were 
 aspiring after the highest spiritual dignities ; or if they could have no 
 hope of obtaining them, after the inferior benefices. " It is singular, 
 that none should be so eager to grow rich, as those whose vocation forbids 
 them to be rich. For why do they incessantly besiege the ears of 
 the pope, with the hope of extorting new benefices ? Let them answer 
 it to themselves, whether they have in view the common good, rather 
 than to fill their own purses, to live in splendor, and bid adieu to 
 the poverty which they have vowed. Albeit experience has taught 
 me much, yet I will not judge." He complains that nearly all defied 
 with the greatest vehemence the ecclesiastical laws, sometimes asking 
 for permission to unite offices which were incompatible with each other ; 
 sometimes to enjoy the revenues of benefices as absentees ; some- 
 times to obtain high dignities before the maturity of years ; some- 
 times not to be compelled to receive ordination, and a thousand other 
 things forbidden by the laws. Was it not intolerable, that the great 
 prelates should give up the flocks entrusted to them, as a prey to 
 wolves, and daily busy themselves in the computation of princely 
 finances, disregarding the commandment of the apostle Paul, 2 Tim. 2: 
 4 ? He inveighs against those prelates who engaged in the trade of war, 
 and from bishops turned into commanders of armies. What was more 
 shameful than to see learned men of good manners, either deprived of 
 ordination, and without any spiritual office, or occupying the lowest po- 
 sitions, while the unlearned and vicious rose to the highest places ; 
 to sec the former starving, and the latter besotted ? He expresses hia 
 
COUNCIL OF PISA. 87 
 
 indignation, that where all strife should be banished af:ir, that there 
 strife was sown broadcast. Scarcely was there a benefice bestowed, 
 which the pope did not confer on one man, the legate on another^ and 
 the bishop on a third. And was it less absurd, that these benefices 
 should be conferred more out of respect to human favor or fear, to im- 
 pure desires, to relationship, or to some whim, than from judgment 
 and selection ? To these abuses he traced all the divisions. " Do 
 they not strive — he represents the church as saying — much more 
 }iow they may secure benefices by the laws of Justinian, than how 
 they may teach the people the law of Christ ? Do I say teach ? nay, 
 I should rather say learn. For what man of the whole number of 
 priests canst thou point out to me, who is not unskilled in the law of 
 Christ ? Do they not labor much more after gain than to win souls ? " 
 He laments those extortions practised on the communities, for which 
 unjust complaints served as a pretext. He complains of the concubin- 
 age, the open debaucheries of ecclesiastics. He represents the church 
 as expressing the hope, that the pope who from childhoud had been 
 bred up in the severe spiritual life, would call men like-minded Avith 
 himself to the benefices, and hold unspiritual men at a distance. " If 
 — says he — you do this, which the duty of the high calling you 
 have undertaken necessitates, then, after the extirpation of all roots 
 of schism, christian peace will again take possession of the world. 
 The depravation of manners was the first cause of the evil ; therefore 
 the reformation of manners will be the first cause of good." Then he 
 comes to the immediate attendants on the pope, reminding him that he 
 would not have it in his power to accomplish such a work without the 
 concurrence of those who were stationed near him. He advises him 
 to care less for minor things, and to expend all his zeal on the greatest 
 and most important. 
 
 Before his coronation, the pope declared that he should occupy 
 himself with the reformation of the church, as he and the rest of the 
 cardinals had pledged themselves to do previous to the election. And 
 he proposed that pious and learned men should be selected out of 
 every nation, to labor at this task in connection with the cardinals. •• 
 In the twentieth session he confirmed all the measures that had been 
 taken by the cardinals, since the time they had come together, for 
 the union of the church, and all the decrees and ordinances of the 
 council ; and he was disposed to complete all that was still wanting, in 
 a juridical and practical point of view, whenever and to whatever 
 extent it might be necessary. He united the two parties among the 
 cardinals, Roman and French, so that for the future they should form 
 together one college. It is deserving of remark, that the pope thought 
 it necessary to confirm the judgments and ordinances of the council, 
 and to supply what was wanting in order to their validity, — a thing, 
 however, which strictly taken conflicted with the recoguition of the 
 unconditional supreme authority of general councils, and by which at 
 bottom the principles on which depended the validity of his own elec- 
 
 » See Hardt. torn. II, p. 146. 
 
88 PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 tion, were unsettled. Neither was the earnestly desired reformation 
 of the church brought about at this council ; but the pope directed, in 
 the twenty-second session, that after three years a general council 
 should again assemble, at some place which should be designated a 
 year beforehand.^ And it was next ordered in the final session, the 
 twenty-third, that " Whereas the pope had it in purpose, in connec- 
 tion with the council, to reform the church in its head and members ; 
 and whereas, by the grace of God, much has been actually set in 
 order by him ; and whereas, many other things, relating to the order 
 of the prelates and other subordinate ecclesiastical persons, still re- 
 mained to be done, which, owing to the premature departure of the 
 prelates and delegates, could not be brought about, therefore, the 
 transactions respecting the reformation should be suspended until the 
 meeting of the above mentioned second council, and then and there 
 continued.'* This next council was, therefore, to be a continuation of 
 the council of Pisa. — Such was the termination of the council, from 
 which men had expected at length the subdual of the schism, and the 
 renovation of the church. 
 
 The most striking judgment on the course of proceedings at this 
 council, and the causes why it so little answered the expectations 
 which it had excited, is passed by Nicholas of Clemangis, the man 
 best informed about the faults of his time. " What means 2 it to cry 
 Peace, Peace, when there is no peace, except it be only to have 
 regard for temporal peace and neglect spiritual, without which not 
 even any true and certain temporal peace can be obtained ? What 
 else at the council of Pisa deceived the church of God and the people, 
 and made them cry out Peace, Peace, when there was no peace ? 
 Was it not just this, that fleshly-minded men, filled with worldly 
 desires, which get the upper hand wherever love grows cold, inflamed 
 and quite blinded with the zeal of getting benefices, prevented the 
 reformation of the church, which the majority of believers and of well- 
 disposed men longed after beyond all things else ; and immediately 
 proceeded to a new election ? And when this had been effected, and 
 they had obtained the desired promotions, they cried out. It is peace. 
 And after the council was dissolved, they returned home with the 
 peace which they were after, that is, with their promotions." As an 
 example to show the mischief which must inevitably arise, when a 
 council imagine themselves following the suggestions of the Holy 
 Ghost, without having first taken pains to make themselves susceptible 
 of his guidance by a suitable temper, he cites this council of Pisa. 
 *' Those — he says — who attended the council of Pisa, decreed and 
 published, that by a new election, which was hastily made in com- 
 pliance with the wishes of a few ambitious men, they had removed 
 schisms from the church and restored peace to her. And who in the 
 church is so blind as not to understand clearly by experience, how 
 much they themselves and the whole church were deceived by that 
 
 ' P. 155. ' Clemangis super mater, cone, gener., 
 
 opp. p. 70. ' P. 64. 
 
CLEMANGIS ON THE COUNCIL OF PISA. 89 
 
 opinion? Nothing worse could have been done to the church, nothing 
 more dangerous to union, than before every thing had been duly 
 arranged, and placed on the basis of security and concord, so as to be 
 able to treat of peace at all, to proceed to a new election, — the very 
 thing which, from the beginning, had laid the foundation of schism, 
 had prolonged it to such a duration, and had in so incredible a man- 
 ner brought the church down to the ground. So long as the hanker- 
 ing after benefices causes this same thing to be done, so long shall we 
 look in vain for a union of the church. 
 
 What Clemangis here says, we find confirmed, when we come to 
 obtain a more exact knowledge of the intrigues which had brought 
 about the election of Pope Alexander, and of all that contributed to 
 promote the evils thai followed in its train. So far was it from being 
 true, that anything had been reformed, everything, in fact, went on 
 from worse to worse, till the evil reached its climax, and thus the fall 
 of his power was a necessary result. The person, who, at the last 
 moment, had labored most to bring about this election, and who from 
 henceforward obtained the greatest influence, was Cardinal Balthazar 
 Oossa^ of Bologna, a man stained with every crime, — one who could 
 only in these times of extreme corruption have risen to the highest 
 spiritual dignities. He had, as Theodoric of Niem, an eye-witness 
 of many of these events, relates, begun his career when a young man, 
 in a manner worthy of himself, as a pirate : then he had spent several 
 years at the university of Pisa, as Theodoric of Niem characteristi- 
 cally expresses it, sub jigura stadentis ; following the habit he had 
 acquired from his earlier occupation as a pirate, to wake by night, 
 and to sleep all day, " or till three o'clock in the afternoon." Pope 
 Boniface IX., under whom the worst characters were cliiefly pro- 
 moted, drew him to the Koman court and made him a cardinal. He 
 exercised, as papal legate at Bologna, an unlimited dominion,i and he 
 made use of it to enrich himself in every possible way. All means to 
 this end were right enough for him. He shrunk from no crime, prac- 
 tised the most unblushing extortions, and every species of impudent 
 simony, and abandoned himself to every excess. In such a time 
 of corruption, he was able by his immense wealth to obtain great 
 influence, which enabled him to carry out his objects. Already, at 
 the council of Pisa, he was to be chosen pope ; but he did not then 
 choose it himself, preferring to push forward another first, who could 
 present a better show for himself, and whom he might still be able to 
 govern entirely. It was that weak old man, Alexander V., whom 
 Balthazar had wholly under his control. Of course, a papal govern- 
 ment which stood under the influence of so infamous a character as 
 Balthazar Cossa, was suited neither to gain new friends nor to put 
 down the schism. Thus what had been gained, was three popes in- 
 stead of two. Balthazar Cossa was more at home in diplomatic nego- 
 tiations and enterprises of war, than in spiritual affairs. He understood 
 how to draw off his old friend, the companion of his debaucheries, 
 
 » Theod. de Niem de fatis Joh. XXIII, c. 9, u. 10, bei H. v. d. Hardt. II, p. 348. 
 
 8* 
 
90 PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 King Ladislaus of Naples, from the cause of Pope Gregory. He 
 understood how to bring it about to have Rome open her gates to 
 Alexander V. The latter was now invited to take his seat in Rome. 
 But Balthazar Cossa, who would have him more in his own power at 
 Bologna, did not allow of this ; he must go to Bologna ; and there he 
 soon died, in the year 1410. A far-spread report accused Cardmal 
 Cossa of deliberately taking him off by poison. The former now 
 mounted the papal throne under the name of John XXIII. , the 
 greatest monster that had ever, or at least that had, since the abomina-. 
 lions in the tenth and eleventh centuries, polluted the papal chair. 
 As Balthazar Cossa had until now risen from one high post to another 
 by bribery and corruption, so he hoped he should by the same means 
 succeed as pope, in whatever he undertook ; that by his money, his 
 power and his policy, he should be able to repress all the counter- 
 active influences of that better spirit, which, for so long a time, had 
 been earnestly and ardently longing after a reformation of the church. 
 And at the beginning all seemed to go well. He hoped he should be 
 able to gain over the university of Paris, whose free voices he had 
 most reason to fear, by the bestowment of numerous benefices and 
 other gratifications. D'Ailly reports, in his treatise on the Necessity 
 of Reformation, which he composed a little later and near the begin- 
 ning of the council of Constance, that Pope John who had probably 
 been told by some Ultramontanes, that if he only gained over the 
 university of Paris, he had nothing further to fear, heaped upon it a 
 multitude of benefices to the injury of other corporations, and that of 
 his own court. 1 With the same object in view, he created Gerson's 
 teacher and friend, the above mentioned Pierre d'Ailly, archbishop of 
 Cambrav, a cardinal. It had indeed alreadv been ordered by the 
 council of Pisa, that after three years a council should be held to 
 carry forward the reformation of the church, wliich had not been 
 com[>leted at Pisa. Pope John hoped to be able in this case also 
 again to disappoint the expectation of the nations, and turn the coun- 
 cil into a farce. He actually convoked in Rome, at the time fixed 
 upcfn in the year 1412, a reformatory council; but who could expect 
 that anything whatever would result from a council in Rome, and 
 under the management of the most abominable of popes ? Only a few 
 Italian prelates attended, and having busied themselves with some 
 
 unimportant matters, the council, after a few sessions, broke up.2 We 
 
 « 
 
 * De neccssitiitc rcformationis cap. 26, comprchcnduntur, ut prius ohtcntis ah ipso 
 
 in Gers. ojjp. torn. II, p. 9UU: Ncc est si- per alicpias. neduin alioruin univcrsaliiiin 
 
 leniio transeuncluni, quod ipse domimis studioiuiu y:ra(.luaiis,sedctiam suae curiae 
 
 Johannes papa, infonnatus f(jrsan per ali- olHeialil)US. ([uiljuscumiue ct quantuineun- 
 
 quos ultramontanos, petentes in sua curia, que sutlieientil)us, cnorniitor dcro^;arit. 
 quod si universitati studii Parisicnsis j)e- - The remarics of Nicliol. of Cleniaufjis 
 
 titionilnis quibuslihet exorahilem sc red- on tliis council, which he wrote in the 
 
 deret. tuto refrnarct, ncc tunc ha!)cret de year 1416, are : Convocaverat ante (piatu- 
 
 reliquis suae ohcdicntiac in ali(pu> dul)ita- or ferme annos Uoniae concilium eccle- 
 
 rc. Ipse quodam scrvili tiniore, adeo mi- siae, maxima (piorundam impulsus instan- 
 
 rabilcs ct prius a scculis inauditas prac- tia. Balthasar ille perlidissimus nupcr e 
 
 rogativas concessit, in gratiis cxspcctativis Tetri sede {(piam turpissime foedahat) 
 
 per dircctorem et magistros universitatis ejcctus, in quo paucissimis concurrentibus 
 
 ejusdcm, qui a mode certo numero noa extrancis, ex aliquibus qui atfucrant Ital- 
 
JOHN xxiir. 9;[ 
 
 find in a letter by Nicholas of CIeman,a;is, a man whose antliority can 
 generally be relied upon, a story, wiiich, if not literally true, yet 
 serves to mark the aspect in which such a council under such a pope 
 must needs have presented itself to contemporaries. At the celebra- 
 tion of the mlssa spiritus sancti previous to the opening of this coun- 
 cil, when the Veni Creator spiritus was sung according to the usual 
 custom, an owl flew suddenly, with a startling hoot, into the middle of 
 the church, and perching itself upon a beam opposite the pope, stared 
 him steadily in the face, at which the prelates whispered round : " Be- 
 hold yonder the Holy Ghost in the shape of an owl ! " The pope 
 seemed greatly embarrassed and annoyed. First, he turned pale, 
 then red ; and, finally, had no other way of helping the matter but by 
 dissolving the meeting. i The story, to be sure, is not literally correct, 
 as here related ; but it is instructive to learn, from an eye-witness, 
 the real fact upon which this story was founded. Theodoric of Niem 
 relates, that once, on the festival of Whitsuntide, while the pope was 
 holding divine service in his chapel, during the chant of the Veni 
 Creator spiritus, an owl flew into the chapel ; and this was considered 
 in Rome a bad omen. 2 Such was the foundation of the story. What 
 Theodoric of Niem, an eye-witness, and an altogether trustworthy 
 reporter, relates in so simple a way, did undoubtedly happen ; just as 
 elsewhere in history, incidents not without symboUcal significance 
 and prophetic truth, do actually occur, though a vulgar spirit of ana- 
 lysis, whose bent is to trivialize all historical facts, vainly attempts to 
 deny it. Not without good reason did this incident leave a singularly 
 strong impression on the minds of many living in those times. They 
 might well look upon it as something ominous. In this way it came 
 about that the fact was transferred to that hypocritical farce of the 
 self-called reformatory council, whose character it so well befitted ; 
 and the incident was shaped by the imagination into the form of a 
 miraculous event. 
 
 Meantime the university of Paris had been zealously engaged in 
 preparing for a reformation of the church. Soon after the close of 
 the council at Pisa, and the election of Alexander V., Gerson deliver- 
 ed, before the king of France, in the name of the university, a dis- 
 course of great weight, as containing the exposition of its principles. 
 It was not as yet understood, for so we may gather from Gerson's 
 discourse, that all hopes of removing the schism were to be again 
 disappointed, and that the evil must go on increasing. Gerson had 
 fixed his hopes upon the council announced beforehand, which was to 
 meet after three years. "All well-disposed persons — says he — 
 ought to labor with the fact full in view that after three years this 
 
 ids ac curialibus, sessiones aliquot tenuit, nes in capella majori sui palatii, prope 
 
 in rebus supervacuis nihilque ad utilitateni Basilicam S. Petri, ut moris est, celebra- 
 
 ecclesiae pertinentibus, tempus terendo, ret, dum inciperetur hymnus Veni creator 
 
 consumptas. Super materia conciiii ge- spiritus, ilico adfuit et volavit illic in alto 
 
 ner. p. 75. bubo seu noctua. Theodorici de Niem de 
 
 I'^id. vita ac fatis Constantiensibus Johannis 
 
 ^ Quia dum quadam vice, in festo Pen- XXIII. bei Herm. v. d. Hardt. II. p. 375. 
 tecostes, dictus Balthasar vesperas solem- 
 
02 PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 council is to assemble.' '* Already he meditated far-reaching plans, 
 embracing more than simply the reformation of the Western church. 
 The prospect opened before him of a restoration of church concord 
 which should unite in one the churches of the West and of the East. 
 The best of opportunities, as he supposed, were now present for bring- 
 ing about a union with the Greeks, inasmuch as they now had for pope 
 a learned man of this nation, who had himself visited the East as 
 papal legate.2 And the impending council seemed to him to be pecu- 
 liarly fitted to prepare the way for such a union : since it was to be 
 expected tliat the Greeks also would be induced to send delegates to 
 it. The supposed restoration of church unity at the council of Pisa, 
 appeared to him as an invitation to labor more earnestly for the glori- 
 fying of the church ; for he reckoned to this the doing away of that 
 ancient schism. And that the former had been successfully accom- 
 pilshed at the council of Pisa appeared to him as a sign which augured 
 favorably for the latter.3 Undoubtedly, if the position taken by the 
 Parisian theologians could possibly have gained the general sanction, 
 then by means of the already mentioned distinction between the neces- 
 sary and the accidental, the mutable and the immutable, in the deter- 
 minations and ordinances of the church, the business of bringing about 
 such a union of the churches would have been very much facilitated. 
 " Men should not" — said he — " feel themselves universally bound, 
 by the positive determinations of the popes, to recognize and hold fast 
 one kind of church-governance as necessary, in things which had no 
 direct concern with the truths of evangelical faith-" He says with 
 good reason, This consideration, rightly apprehended, is the princi- 
 pal key to the effecting of a union between Greeks and Latins ; * for 
 they differ in many modes and ways of life which perhaps would not 
 result in any injury to the divine law. We should in all such 
 things follow the principle of Augustin, that national customs ought 
 invariably to be respected. Among such unimportant differences he 
 reckoned the distinction with regard to the use of leavened or unleav- 
 ened bread. The Greeks, he thinks, would fall into an error of faith, 
 only in case they should maintain, that the first gospels had reported 
 what was untrue in their account of the time of the paschal supper. 
 Among these he reckoned also the marriage of priests among the 
 Greeks, and several other things. According to the same principle 
 of a manifold variety perfectly consistent with the essential unity of 
 the church, in the particular church institutions, he requires also the 
 reestablishment of the liberties of the Gallican church, in spite of the 
 contradiction of the Roman curialists. It is remarkable that Gerson, 
 while he maintained the necessity of agreement in the truths of faith 
 to the neglect of subordinate differences which might exist without 
 injury to the former, impugns as a vulgar error the opinion, that every 
 man may be saved in his own particular religion.^ We may doubtless 
 
 ' Scrmo coram rege, XII, consideratio. * P. 148. 
 
 0pp. torn. II, p. 152 C. ' Et diccre confrarium est error eom- 
 
 ' P. 144. A. munis, quod unusquisque sit salvatus iu 
 
 ' 1'. U9. secta sua. P. 146 C. . 
 
GERSON. — D'aILLY. PARIS UNIVEIISTTY. 93 
 
 infer from this, that the corruption of the church, which allowed so 
 little to be known of the practical influence of the truths of faith, had 
 already led many to hold these truths themselves as of little practical 
 account, Gerson signalizes as opposite errors, the assertion of Marsi- 
 lius of Padua and of Wickliff, that the pope ought not to have secular 
 property, nor secular rule, and the principle expressed by Boniface 
 YIII., that to the one spiritual power of the pope, all secular author- 
 ity must be subjected.^ Much as Gerson was disposed to allow a 
 certain degree of freedom to church development, yet he could not 
 tolerate the idea, that this freedom should pass beyond the limits of 
 such a uniformity of doctrine, as had shaped itself into a system 
 among the theologians of the university of Paris. The Parisian theo- 
 logy was to constitute a legislative power for all theological develop- 
 ment, so as to preclude the possibility of all revolution. This explains 
 the conduct of Gerson in opposing the freer movement which proceed- 
 ed from Bohemia. He cites the remarkable words of the Duke of 
 Lancaster to the Duke of Burgundy, respecting the mutual relation 
 of the theological tendencies of those times at Oxford and at Paris. 
 '' We have, in England, men of finer imagination ; but the Parisians 
 have a true, solid and safe theology." 2 At this time, the university 
 of Paris supposed that, from the foundation which had been laid at 
 the council of Pisa, the restoration of church unity must go every- 
 where into effect. Alexander V. appeared as the sole legitimate pope ; 
 and Gerson proposed, that the other princes and nations should also 
 be prevailed upon, by negotiation, to recognize him as such. The 
 corruption of the church, and the longing after and the presentiment 
 of its renovation, called forth in different countries, and in the case of 
 different men, and in different forms — as, for example, in Bohemia, 
 in the case of John Miliz, in the case of Matthias of Janow, and as we 
 see also in France, in the case of Nicholas of Clemangis and Gerson, 
 — the expectation of the near-approaching destruction of the world. 
 Yet even in regard to this matter again, the sober, intellectual spirit 
 of Gerson clearly manifests itself. He says : " But who knows 
 whether it is not God's will, that the end of the world should draw 
 nigh, and that all should betake themselves to the one Christian faith, 
 and to that common union, which must precede the end of the world, 
 though I announce nothing as certain, and prophesy nothing about 
 what may be expected, when God would not reveal this, his own 
 secret, to Apostles and Prophets 1 3 " 
 
 The expectations which were cherished when Gerson delivered his 
 discourse in the name of the Paris University, were destined soon to 
 be disappointed. It could not fail to be very soon known how egre- 
 giously men had been mistaken, when the events which we have de- 
 scribed took place. How much could be learned from the experience 
 of a few years ! Nor did the instructive lesson pass unheeded. In vain 
 had John XXIII. tried to conciliate the University of Paris by pri- 
 
 * P. 147 B. habent solidam et securam theologiam. P. 
 
 ' Habemus in Anglia viros subtiliores 149 B. 
 in imaginationibus, sed Parisienses veram ^ P. 152 A. 
 
94 PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 vate benefits. In vain had he tried to draw over to his interest such a 
 man as d'Aillv. The men who had labored most to brinci; about the 
 meetin<]r of a neneral council at Pisa, were the men who labored also 
 most zealously to arrange matters so that another council might effect 
 "what this council had failed to accomplish. Cardinal d'Aillj, to guard 
 against the danger of again falling into the same mistakes, presented 
 to view, in a letter addressed to his disciple Gerson, the difficulties ly- 
 ing in the wav of a restoration of unitv and of a reformation of the 
 
 CD %/ 4/ 
 
 church by a general council. i If, says he, a new general council 
 should actually be convened, of what use would it be ? Suppose even, 
 that all three of the popes should abdicate of their own accord, or else 
 be forced to leave their places ; and instead of them, a new one should 
 be elected, as at Pisa ; yet the cardinals would again take the choice 
 into their own hands, and they would again choose a man out of their 
 own body, who would be no better than the former ones. And thus 
 the old mischief will go on as long as the cardinals remain the same. 
 But suppose the council should light upon some other method of elec- 
 tion, and the choice should fall upon a man of an altogether different 
 stamp from the earlier ones ; then the cardinals would, without doubt, 
 refuse to acknowledge a person so entirely different from themselves, 
 and some new and worse division would grow out of this. Thus a com- 
 plication of difficulties meets us on all sides. He points to the council 
 of Pisa as a warning example. Although the cardinals had in their let- 
 ters, sent forth in all directions, promised a council for the reformation 
 of the church in its head and members, yet they had chosen out of their 
 body Alexander V., who, although a great theologian, yet was wholly 
 inexperienced in the things belonging to his office ; and what the car- 
 dinals required of him he had conceded without demur, and without 
 daring to refuse anything. Hence they had overwhelmed him with 
 one new demand after another, and could never have enough. 
 
 Upon this, chancellor Gerson composed his Treatise on the mode in 
 which the unitj^ of the church should be restored and its reformation 
 brought about at a council ; 2 where he endeavored to point out how 
 the difficulties and hindrances presented to view by d'Ailly, could be 
 met and disposed of. Gerson proceeds on the principle, ever main- 
 tained by him, that all positive laws must yield to the greatest good of 
 the whole — the power as well of the civil magistrate as of the head 
 of the church, was conditioned on this. If kings by the law of inherit- 
 ance could be deposed where the good of the state required it ; how 
 much more sjiould popes, created such by election, be liable to ejec- 
 tion from office, when the good of the church required it? On 
 this point, Gerson expresses himself in a way deserving of notice : 
 *'AVill it be said that a pope, whose father and grandfather before him 
 hardly got beans enough perhaps to satisfy the cravings of hunger, 
 that the son of some Venetian fisherman, must maintain the papal dig- 
 nity to the hurt of the entire commonwealth of the church, and with 
 
 ' De difficultate reformationis in con- ' De modis unicndi ac refonnandi ec- 
 cilio uiiivcisiiili. 0pp. (Jerrfon. toin. II, p. clesiam. T. 162. 
 867. 
 
GERSON DE MODIS UNIENDT. 95 
 
 "wrong to SO many princes and prelates ? For the sake of this, must so 
 much ruin accrue to the souls of men ? Look — says he — a pope 
 is a man, descended from men, earth from earth, a sinner and subject 
 to sin, the son of a poor peasant a few days ago ; he is exalted to the 
 papal chair. Does such an one become a sinless man, a saint, -without 
 the least repentance for his sins, without confessing them, without con- 
 trition of heart ? Who has made him a saint ? Not the Holy Ghost ; 
 for it is not dignity of station that brings the influences of the Holy 
 Ghost, but the grace of God and love ; not the authority of the office, 
 for it may be enjoyed by bad men as well as good." The popes might, as 
 history taught, fall into precisely the same sins with those who are not 
 priests. *' We see — says he — as clear as noon-day, that the actions of 
 modern prelates and priests are not of a spiritual kind, but secular and 
 fleshly." The higher the position held by the pope, the more bound 
 was he to observe the law of Christ.^ Were there actually a universallj^- 
 acknowledged pope, it would be his duty to use every means for re- 
 storing peace to the church, even to the laying down of his own office. 
 Where, then, there were three, quarrelling with one another for the 
 papacy, they were bound to renounce their arrogated rights. As the 
 church of Christ is clearly manifested to be one, so there should be but 
 one pope, recognized by all and manifest to all. But how could this 
 be so, when two or three are quarrelling with one another about the pa- 
 pacy, as if they were contending for the eternal inheritance ? lie cites, 
 as opposed to this, the words of Christ to the apostles, Luke 22: 25. 
 In the next place, it was evident that Christ gave no greater power to 
 Peter than he himself exercised while on earth. The pope, therefore, 
 had no other to administer. Why presume, then, to contend for that 
 which does not belong to him ? Nor was it to be believed that, if Paul 
 had said to Peter, thou art not pope or Roman bishop ; thou art only 
 bishop of Antioch, but I am bishop of the Roman church, he would 
 have contended with Paul or any other man saying the same, about 
 the papacy ; but would simply have said, I bid you God-speed ; rule 
 in the name of God, as that is what you seek. '* See then, ye believers 
 — says he — that if we obey those who are thus contending with each 
 other and rending in pieces the church, we grievously sin. Long ere 
 this, would they have quitted the grasp of their tyrannical rule, had 
 you not indulged them with your obedience." 
 
 But in holding fast to the abstract notion alone, that all else must 
 give place to the greatest good of the church, Gerson was driven into 
 principles contrary to good morals, and allowed that the end sanctifies 
 the means. For he says, " If those two or three will not yield, it re- 
 mains only to resort to stronger measures ; to depose them and expel 
 them from the communion of the church ; to subtract our obedience to 
 them. But still if by these means the highest interest of the church can- 
 
 ' Item papa non est supra dei cvange- mandate Christi. Imo tanto magis ad 
 
 Hum, quod sic ejus auctoritas esset major ipsum servundum obligatur,quunto magis 
 
 auctoritate Christi, nee tunc ejus potestas est in dignitate et perfectiori statu cousti- 
 
 derivaretur a Christo : suhjieitur ergo ut tutus. P. 167 C. 
 alter Christianus in omnibus praecepto et 
 
96 PAPACY AND CHCRCn CONSTITUTION. 
 
 not be promoted, then we must bring about the holy concord of the 
 church by cunning, by fraud, by force of arms, by promises, by pres- 
 ents, and money ; finally, by resorting to imprisonment and the taking 
 of life, or by any other means whatever whereby the unity of the church 
 can be promoted." In inviting men to renounce their obedience to 
 popes who gave scandal to the entire church, he says : " For if we 
 suppose the case, that the universal church, whose head is Christ, had 
 no pope ; still a believer, who should depart from the world in charity, 
 would be saved ; for when two or three individuals are contending 
 with each other about the papacy, and the truth on this matter is not 
 known to the universal church ;^ the fact that this or that individual is 
 pope cannot be an article of faith, nor can anything depend upon it, 
 nor any Christian be bound to believe it. And for this reason the apos- 
 tles, in drawing up the creed, did not say : I believe in the pope, or in 
 the vicar of Christ ; for the common faith of Christians does not repose 
 upon the pope, who is but a single person, and may err ; but they 
 said : I believe in one holy, catholic church. He distinguishes the 
 outward apostolic church, to which even wicked men might belong, 
 from the catholic church as the community of saints. How could popes, 
 then, belong to this latter church, who, for the sake of their own pri- 
 vate advantage, were contending for the papac}'', and lived in the con- 
 dition of mortal sin ? He starts the objection : " Should the legiti- 
 mate pope John convoke the council, and choose to preside over it, 
 ■who would venture to oppose his will ? Who would venture to seek 
 the greatest good of the church ?" As the popes had already, by 
 their special ana general reservations, robbed the universal church, 
 laid waste the monasteries, invented a thousand ways of bestowing 
 benefices and getting money ; so it would not be easy to find a man 
 who would be inclined to give up so gainful a papacy and give peace 
 to the universal church. But suppose the pope not to be serious in 
 convoking the council ; then, on the penalty of incurring a mortal sin, 
 the prelates with the princes were bound to convoke it as soon as pos- 
 sible ; to cite before it the pope and those contending with him about 
 the papacy, and if they refused to appear, to depose them. But sup- 
 pose the pope should convoke the council, but not in a safe place. 
 Christians were not bound to go there. But suppose the place were 
 safe, yet subject to the pope's dominion, so that there could be no lib- 
 erty of speech there. Christians, who are no longer servants of the law, 
 but free sons of grace, were not bound to appear there. Whenever, 
 then, the question on hand related to the deposing of the pope or to a 
 censure of his conduct, or a limitation of his power, it noways belonged 
 to him to convoke the general council, but to the prelates, the cardi- 
 nals, bishops, and secular rulers ; but where the question on hand re- 
 lated to the reformation of a province or a kingdom, to the extirpation 
 of heresies, the defence of the faith, then it was the business of the 
 
 ^ Quod si nee isto modo poterit ecole- convenit sanctissimam unionem ecclesiae, 
 
 sia proHcere, tunc dolis, t"rau(lil)U.s, anni3, ct coiiJuiR-tiouein quoniodulibct procurare. 
 
 violentia, j)otentia, proniissionil»us, donis P. 170 D. 
 et pecuniis, taudum careeribus, mortibus 
 
GERSON DE MODIS TTXIEXDI. 97 
 
 pope and his cardinals to convoke the council.^ It appeared to him 
 the only means fur deliverance, that the emperor should convoke the 
 council, and, as defender of the faith, preside over It, and find some 
 method of restoring again the flock of Christ.^ D'AIlly had made the 
 objection that the next council, inasmuch as it was but a continuation 
 of the council of Pisa, would bring nothing better to pass. To this 
 Gerson replies. There can be nothing so good but that there may be 
 something still better. Since then the new council may do something 
 still better than the first, where, according to the opinion of all, a certain 
 over-hastiness prevailed, and where everything had been done with 
 heat and precipitancy and not with due deliberation, so that in truth 
 it had not answered Its end, of restoring unity to the church and brln*^- 
 ing all under one pope ; and since too many foreign matters had been 
 introduced at that time ; so the future council might possibly prove to 
 be a holler and more perfect one.3 Although Gerson acknowledged 
 the necessity of a change In the laws, to render them more conformable 
 to the times, still he would not concede to the pope the right of dis- 
 pensing with any laws enacted by a council, or of making any modifi- 
 cations in them. He well understood how everything would thus be 
 unsettled again. Such power ought not to be entrusted to any single 
 man : it should be reserved to another general council. 4 He then 
 complains of the arbitrary deviations from laws enacted by the older 
 councils, laws which had become almost a matter of ridicule. The 
 most wanton extortions in filling up church offices, had proceeded 
 from the court at Avignon, because none of the cardinals were able 
 to keep up royal state, unless daily sustained by supplies flowing to 
 them from all quarters through such modes of gain. " And when tliat 
 new union, which he calls a talis qualis, was brought about at Pi- 
 sa, the extortions had been carried to a still greater extent.5 He pro- 
 poses that a new council should be held every five or six years, where 
 a more complete reformation in all things might be carried throuo-h.e 
 
 Gerson says,^ " Because the prelates of our time are dumb dogs, 
 these mischievous constitutions and reservations have taken the place 
 of rights^ and laws ; so that it is frightful to recount the number of 
 evils which have thereby been occasioned ; as for example that the 
 intimates of the cardinals, occasionally murderers, ignorant men, cooks, 
 grooms, mule-drivers, may obtain canonicates in cathedral churches ; 
 while those who have obtained a degree in any of the faculties can 
 not get at them." D'AIlly had suggested the query, as to what should 
 be done in case the pope with his cardinals persisted in clinging to the 
 old corruptions, and gave themselves no concern about "any of the 
 laws enacted by the council ; to which Gerson replies : "As those 
 priests of Baal, who themselves devoured the offerings presented to 
 Baal, and told the people on the next day that BaaF had devoured 
 them, and were all destroyed when the cheat came to be exposed, so 
 was it with those high priests who lied to God and men with iudul- 
 
 IZVni'r. 'P. 186C. ^P.182D. * P. 185 A. 
 
 VOL. V. 9 
 
98 PAPACY AND cnrPtCn coxstitution. 
 
 gences, dispensations, and blessings, who preached much falseliood, 
 calling good evil, and evil good. If these were not wholly extirpated, 
 so that pope Boniface's pJmitation^ which God had not planted, should 
 be destroyed and utterly banished from human socio t\% lie feared tlie 
 church would never be reformed in the head and members, but that 
 extortions would continually rise in enormity, till the pope and cardi- 
 nals got into their hands all the property in the world ; and then tliere 
 would be no apostolical chair, but only an apostatical one ; no divine 
 see, but a scat of Satan, on which no man ought to sit, but from which 
 every man should recoil, ^o prelate,^ when the reservations and va- 
 luations of the benefices were made, having shown the least opposition, 
 either from weakness or iornorance or a re^rard to their own aavantai^e, 
 the pope and cardinals had, for nearly a hundred years, declared that 
 those reservations had obtained the validity of law ; and that a gene- 
 ral council could not alter them ; which was false. No. Let the 
 prelates rise up, let them present to God the sacrifice of righteous- 
 ness, and let them try to banish forever those robberies by the Roman 
 chancery ; for such things could not be prescribed to the prejudice of 
 the church, things that conflicted with its very being. To get hold of 
 this money from the benefices, thousands of officials had been appoint- 
 ed at the Roman court, and perhaps not one could be found among 
 them all who was there for the promotion of virtue. " There — says 
 he — the daily talk is of castles, of territorial domains, of the different 
 kinds of weapons, of gold ; but seldom or never of chastity, alms, 
 righteousness, faith, or holy manners ; so that the court, once a spirit- 
 ual one. has become a secular, devilish, tyrannical court, and worse 
 in manners and civil transactions than any other." How can the 
 pope — says he 3 — be servant of the servants of God on earth, when 
 he is more ready to please princes, kings, and tyrants, than God and 
 his saints ? Were the pope, indeed, servant of the servants of God, 
 as he styles himself in the beginning of his bulls, he would obey and 
 serve the poor who are God's servants, or at least show care for them 
 by works of mercy. " But where will you find charity in a pope ? " 
 He complains that no poor, no pious man, seeking help in spiritual or 
 bodily distress, could be admitted into the papal palace. You may, 
 indeed, see soldiers and tyrants decked in purjole go in to him ; but 
 never an ill-clad, poor man, though he may be learned and conscien- 
 tious. He is no longer " servant of the servants of God," but rather, 
 " John, the lord of lords." When tyrannical princes, men of bad lives, 
 oppressors of the church, apply to the pope with their petitions for 
 some castle or other, or to obtain a beneficium, or a bishopric for their 
 favorites, the petitions of such are sooner listened to than those of 
 better princes." * The power, he affirmed, did not belong to the 
 pope, which was commonly ascribed to him, of binding in heaven and 
 on earth ; ^ all that had been given him was the power of announcing 
 and of absolving in spiritual things. He did but announce that he 
 whom he absolved was absolved, he whom he bound was bound in the 
 
 ' P. 194 C. ' P. 184 B. ' p. 197 C 
 
 * P. 197 A. 6 P. 198^\. 
 
GERSON DE MODIS UNIEXDI. 99 
 
 church. Not the pope, but God only could forgive sins. If it shouhl 
 be asked, to what end was the convocation of such a general council, 
 the answer was, that it was called more particularly for two objects ; 
 first, the union of the church under one head ; secondly, union in the 
 customs and laws of the primitive church. And if it should be object- 
 ed, that the means were doubtful, and therefore unsafe, especially as 
 there was already a pope ; ' to this he replied, that although we have, 
 according to right, but one pope, yet in point of fact there are two 
 others besides. Let there be assembled, then, a council to carry out 
 what was resolved upon at the council of Pisa, or, if this could not be 
 done, as was probable, and if the two other popes were ready to 
 appear at a general council, and to abdicate there, in case John XXIII. 
 would do the same, then the latter was bound, if a deliverance of the 
 church was in no other way possible, to give up willingly for this ob- 
 ject even more than a papacy, so that the whole christian common- 
 wealth might not, for the sake of one individual who was a sinner and 
 neither exemplary nor virtuous, be brought to destruction. Were 
 he a virtuous man, he would follow the example of Christ, who came 
 not to do his own will, but the will of Him that sent him. He would 
 submit to the will of the whole church and lay down his papacy, if He 
 required him to do so. Even though there were a true, undoubted, 
 and universally acknowledged pope, he would be necessitated to do 
 this by the demand of a general council, in case the church could not 
 otherwise be helped ; and to obey without contradiction all the ordi- 
 nances of that general council. D'Ailly had presented the objection, 
 that in case of a vacancy of the imperial throne, and a contention 
 among the elector-princes, obeying different popes, a convocation of 
 the council from such a quarter could not be made ; to which Gerson 2 
 replies : if this could not be done, then the convocation of the council 
 would devolve, first, on other princes ; next, on other societies and 
 secular lords ; then on citizens of the towns and peasants, and even 
 down to the poorest old woman ; for as the church might consist even 
 of the poorest old woman, as for example, at the death of Christ, 
 when the virgin Mary only remained, — so by such an one a general 
 council could be called for the deliverance of the church. Further- 
 more, D'Ailly had made the objection, that a newly elected emperor 
 was bound by the oath given to his pope. To this Gerson replies : -^ 
 no oath can be binding to the prejudice of the universal church. He 
 cites, for illustration, the case of a monarch, cruel and ferocious to his 
 people ; in such a case the people were no longer bound by the oath 
 they had given to him, but the subjects were made judges over their 
 master.'* 
 
 It seems to Gerson^ desirable, that neither of the popes, nor yet 
 any one from the college of cardinals, should be made pope ; for, as 
 the latter were inured to the practice of the old abuses and extortions, 
 
 ' P. 181. 2 p. 189 A. ejus subditi, juramentum homagii et fide- 
 
 ^ P. 189 D. litatis oliui pracstitum ci in aiic^uo obser- 
 
 * Sicut si rex iniquus in populum sibi vare. 
 
 Bubditum vellet desaevirc, non tenentur ^ P. 195 B. 
 
100 PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 it was to be feared, that they would persist in them, and that the evil 
 might be made worse. Therefore, to forefend sucli mischief, a deter- 
 mination of the general council was to be desired, that in future no 
 person should be chosen pope from the body of cardinals, but that he 
 should be chosen from the several provinces and kingdoms according 
 to a certain order. Then, after the election of such a pope, it seems 
 to him especially requisite, that his power should for the future be 
 limited, as the pope had taken many rights of the church into his own 
 bands. 
 
 The peace between the pope and King Ladislaus did not last lonsj. 
 The latter suddenly attacked the pope's residence. So extremely 
 odious had the latter rendered himself at Rome, that Ladislaus found 
 little difficulty in making himself master of the city. Pope John fled 
 in great trepidation on horseback, in ]\Iay of the year 1413, to Flor- 
 ence ; thence he went to Bologna, and to several cities of Lombardy, 
 and had an interview with the new emperor Sigisraond, who had been 
 invited by all the well-disposed to effect a cure of the corruption and 
 of the schism in the church, and for this purpose to hasten the meet- 
 ing of a general council. A common political interest joined together 
 the pope and the emperor in the quarrel with King Ladislaus. Be- 
 sides, the pope could not fail to understand, that it was impossible for 
 him any longer to succeed in eluding the general desire after a re- 
 formatory council. He consented to the meeting of such a council. 
 One important question only remained to be decided, — that of the 
 place where the council should assemble. Aretin, the pope's secre- 
 tary at that time, relates, that the pope, before sending off his legates 
 to the emperor,2 told him that all depended on the place of the coun- 
 cil ; he would not go to a spot where the emperor was the more 
 powerful. He would, for the sake of appearances, give his legates 
 ample powers to treat on this point, with the emperor. To this the 
 ostensible instruction to the legates should relate. But he would 
 secretly instruct them and restrict the choice to a few cities ; and 
 these cities he named to Aretin. But, on dismissing his legates, it 
 occurred to him all at once, that he would trust the whole matter to 
 their hands. He said he would leave evervthins; to their discretion ; 
 and ni proof of it, he tore in pieces the secret instructions which he 
 was intending to give them. So states Aretin, who was present 
 during these secret transactions between the pope and his legates.3 
 The legates, bound by no restrictions, suflfered themselves to be per- 
 suaded by the emperor to accept of the free German city of Constance 
 as the place for the meeting of the council. This was, to be sure, 
 a perilous choice to the interests of the pope ; but he could not now 
 recede with honor. The historian Aretin, in relating this, adds : 
 " None can resist God's will." Meanwhile King Ladislaus died. 
 The pope was urged by his kinsmen and friends to return to Rome. 
 They augured to him no good of his journey to Constance. Gladly 
 
 ' P. 201 A. ital. torn. XIX, p. 928 C. •'' Ibid. D. 
 
 ' Commcntarius in Muratori script rer. 
 
PROCLAMATION OF THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. 101 
 
 ■would he have returned to Rome, instead of going to Constance. 
 But it was now too late to alter the thing with a good grace ; and he 
 still indulged a hope that he should, as he had often done before, win 
 the victory by his craftiness and his money ; and, at Bologna, where 
 he finally took up his quarters, he provided himself with a sumptuous 
 equipage, with which he intended to make his journey to Constance, 
 and by which he hoped to make a great impression on many.i The 
 pope and the emperor Sigismond now put forth in common their pro- 
 clamation for a council, which should assemble at Constance, in No- 
 vember of the year 1414, for the restoration of unity to the church, 
 and for the reformation of the church in its head and members. 
 
 The cardinal D'Ailly prepared the way for the doings of the coun- 
 cil by his work on the Necessity of the Reformation of the Church to 
 be brought about by the council. 2 He pointed it out as the first thing 
 to be done, that the council should resolve not to break up until the 
 choice of a pope recognized by all Christendom, should be efifected. 
 The shortest way to this, in his opinion, was, that, without any regard 
 to the decrees of the council of Pisa, the three popes should all resign 
 their dignities. If this were done, an upright man, of regular, scien- 
 tific education, should be elected by twelve prelates, more or less, who 
 should receive full powers for this purpose from the council, with the 
 concurrence of the cardinals.^ Moreover, d'Ailly maintains, that as a 
 king who abuses his power may be dethroned by the people, for whose 
 greatest good he is there, so a fortiori this could be done in the case 
 of a pope, who is chosen for the express purpose of teaching the laws 
 of God. 4 He complains of the great state, which the cardinals thought 
 it necessary to display, and in order to display which they were forced 
 to sequestrate to their own use all the revenues of the church. '^ For 
 — says he ^ — of what use is all that wonderful pomp ; that he who 
 to-day, perhaps, is content to appear publicly as the humble retainer 
 of a clergyman, to-morrow, made a cardinal, feels as if the world w^as 
 scarcely enough for him, and appears in as much state as if he were 
 leading an army to battle." He would see those abuses removed, 
 that cardinals should appropriate to themselves archbishoprics, bishop- 
 rics, abbacies ; should never be seen by their dioceses, but cause the 
 functions to be discharged by ignorant, worthless hirelings, out of all 
 which grew much evil to the church. He expresses the wish that the 
 council would counteract the mischiefs occasioned by the suffragan 
 bishops in Germany. These, having obtained their offices by simony, 
 were accustomed to practise, in their turn, every species of extortion 
 on the clergy and the people, and to push bargains for giving ordina- 
 tions. The council should estabhsh certain rules against these mal- 
 practices. He thinks that, as so much corruption proceeded from the 
 Roman court, this should first be reformed : that those who made a 
 trade of spiritual things, and the instruments of simony, should be 7 
 
 ' Theod. de Niem de fatis Joh. XXIII, ecclesiae in capite et in membris. In Gers. 
 c. 40, 1. 1. p. 387. opp. II, p. 885. 
 
 * Mouita de necessitate reformationis ^ P. 886. * P. 896. 
 
 » P. 888 D. « P. 892 D. ' P. 898 C 
 
 9* 
 
102 PAPACY AND CnURCn COXSTITUTIOX. 
 
 utterly thrust out from that court. lie considers It as a consequence 
 of simonv, and of those other malpractices, that the heresies in Bohe- 
 mia and Moravia had made such head-way.^ A strenuous effort should 
 be made to banish heresies and the authors of them from Bohemia and 
 Moravia. But there was no way in which tliis could be thoroughly 
 done, except by applying some remedy to the evil which had given 
 occasion for all attacks upon the papacy, namely, the corruption of the 
 Roman court. That court should be brought back to its ancient good 
 manners.^ The same d'Ailly composed, about this time, two letters 
 addressed to Pope John,3 relating to the same subject. He adverts 
 in them to certain language on the necessity of a church reformation, 
 which had once been uttered in a solemn assembly before Pope Urban 
 V. He deems it the more necessary to refer to this, because soon 
 afterwards, on the death of Gregory XI., the schism, under the effects 
 of which they were now suifering, had grown out of the corruptions of 
 the church, to the correction of which this language had reference. 
 He says : ^ *' Although I am no prophet, nor the son of a prophet, 
 yet I venture to say, without asserting anything rash, that if at the 
 next council means are not found to remove these scandals, by the 
 entire heahng of the schism and hj the reformation of so corrupt a 
 church, then we must set it down as probable, that still more and 
 greater evils will ensue." He states that some took comfort from the 
 ft\ct that the abbot Bernard and others had found it necessary to 
 complain of the corruption of the church, and yet its downfall did not 
 follow. In like manner, it might still prolong its existence. He 
 affirms, on the contrary, that when the measure of sins is filled up, 
 divine judgment will interpose, and the children must often atone for 
 guilt contracted by their fathers. Next he adverts to the opinion of 
 those inconsiderate men, from whom the church had to expect the 
 greatest danger, whose motto was. Let the world take its natural 
 course, and who looked upon everything alike with the same indiffer- 
 ence.^ Furthermore, he mentions the opinion of a certain class, who 
 held the evils of the church to be incurable, and supposed that, as all 
 kingdoms have had their end, so the dominion of the church was now, 
 by the fault of its presiding officers, hastening to its decline ; in con- 
 tradiction to which he says, a divine judgment, it is true, may be 
 threatening the church ; but still, should an improvement of manners 
 take place, should the superfluous pomp of the prelates be moderated, 
 should men, in heart and deed, repent and turn to God, it was to be 
 hoped that God would, in some ineffiible way, send deliverance, and 
 stay the course of judgment. 
 
 Although Pope John relied with some confidence upon the influence 
 of his wealth, upon the great number of prelates devoted to him or 
 bound up in his interests, and upon the force of intrigue, yet it was 
 not without anxiety that he set out upon the journey to Constance. 
 On his way through Tyrol, he had an interview with Duke Frederic 
 
 ' P. 901 C- ' p. 902 A. cchant : vcniat quod poterit, conforme- 
 
 ' P. 876. * P. 880 A. mu3 nos huic saeculo tcinpcstivius. P. 
 
 * Error valde perversus eorum, qui di- 879 A. 
 
COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. 103 
 
 of Aiistrin, ^vishlng to take arl vantage of the bad terms on which the 
 duke stood with the emperor Sigismond, the zealous promoter of church 
 reform ; and he made the duke agree that in case the pope should 
 not find liimself safe in Constance, the duke should afford him protec- 
 tion in his neighboring domain. Thus his plan was already laid. It 
 Avas already his intention, in case he failed of carrying out his schemes 
 at Constance, to try the experiment of making his escape by flight, so 
 as to break up the council. During the journey the pope's carriage was 
 upset in the snow. This was looked upon by himself and many others 
 as a bad omen. He arrived at Constance on the 28th of October, and 
 after several adjournments the council was opened. The pope was 
 calculating that the votes would be taken by the number of persons, 
 and w^as therefore hoping to carry out his measures by the major- 
 ity of single votes, particularly from the Italian nation, upon which he 
 might depend. But his designs were penetrated and defeated. In 
 a proposition relating to the form of transacting business, the fact was 
 noticed, that the pope had on his side a majority of poor prelates be- 
 longing to the Italians, exceeding the number of deputies present from 
 any other nation ; that he had appointed fifty chamberlains ; that by 
 the administration of various oaths, by presents or by threats he had 
 secured numbers to himself ; so that by the majority of votes he could 
 manage all matters as he pleased. To guard against unfairness from 
 this cause, it was deemed best that the votes should be taken by nations 
 rather than by persons.^ This proposition was carried, in spite of all the 
 opposition of the papal party. The council was divided for the present 
 into four nations, Italians, French, Germans, and English. The de- 
 puties of each nation held their separate meetings, and whatever was 
 determined upon by the majority in these meetings, passed as the 
 judgment of the nation. Then the committees of the several different 
 nations reported their separate decrees in the general congregations 
 of the deputies of all the four nations, and whatever was decreed 
 by the majority of the four votes in these meetings was to be pro- 
 claimed in the public sessions as a decree of the council. It w^ould 
 be important, again, for the interest of the pope, if none but bishops 
 and abbots were allowed a definitive vote in the council. Among 
 these, independent thinkers were fewer in number ; among the titular- 
 bishops and abbots especially, were many creatures of the pope. 
 But it was endeavored to prevent this also. Even two cardinals, of 
 whom one was Cardinal d'Ailly, declared in the discussions on this 
 matter, that from the time of the foundation of the universities, doc- 
 tors of theology, doctors of the canon and the civil law, men to whom 
 were entrusted the office of teaching and preaching, could not but 
 have more weight than titular-bishops and abbots, who neither 
 preached nor taught, nor had any cure of souls ; and that the learn- 
 ing of the former must be set as a make-weight over against the ad- 
 vantage which the higher but ignorant prelates obtained from their 
 authority. In deciding on matters of faith especially, theological 
 
 ' V. D. Hardt. torn. II, p. 230. 
 
104 PAPACY AND CHURCH COXSTITUTION. 
 
 learning could not be dispensed with. Furthermore, inferior ecclesi- 
 astics who exercised the office of preaching and had the cure of souls, 
 had a better right to join in the discussion of purely spiritual matters, 
 than those who were bishops merely by title, and abbots. Cardinal 
 St. Marci called the ignorant prelates mitred asses. It was remark- 
 ed, in the next place, that in business relating to the extermination of 
 schism, and the restoration of peace to the church, the princes and 
 their envoys were not to be excluded from the right of voting, since 
 the matter was so intimately connected with the interest of princes and 
 their subjects. Moreover, their assistance was required to execute 
 the decrees of the council on these matters.' This proposition also 
 was adopted ; and thus the most free-minded, sagacious, and indepen- 
 dent men obtained great influence at the council, an influence which 
 the pope had special reason to dread. The prelates devoted to the 
 pope demanded, that the first business to be attended to should be the 
 confirmation of the council of Pisa ; from this it was to be derived, as 
 a necessary consequence, that the only business before the present 
 council, was to carry out the decrees of the council of Pisa ; that the 
 council therefore should proceed on the assumption that the authority 
 of Pope John XXIII. was alone valid, and that the only thing neces- 
 sary was to persuade or to compel the other two popes to submit.2 
 Against this, it was observed by d'Ailly ^ and others, that the council 
 of Constance was not competent to confirm the council of Pisa, stand- 
 ing as it did on the same footing of authority with its own ; and the 
 only influence of such a proceeding would be to unsettle the minds 
 of men, as if that general council were not a legal one by itself; but 
 the council of Constance must be regarded as an independent continu- 
 ation of the council at Pisa, and act accordingly. Thus they ought 
 to proceed in reference to the reformation of the church in its head 
 and members, and the restoration of church unity. Hence it might 
 be inferred, that the council was competent, if the general good of the 
 church re(|uired it and her union was to be secured in no other way, to 
 oblige all the three popes to resign. 
 
 This form of transacting business could not fail to work favorably 
 on the course of the council. The efiects of the freer mode of pro- 
 ceeding soon manifested themselves. A man stained with so many 
 vices as this Balthazar Cossa, whose crimes were known to so many, 
 must soon be exposed. In the month of February, of the year 1415, 
 a number of charges against the pope were laid before the council, 
 relating to every species of vice and crime, and which, for the most 
 part at least, were too true. To the pope, who had his secret spies in 
 all quarters, this was soon reported ; and at first he was thrown into 
 great trepidation and anxiety, for his conscience accused him. He 
 called round him certain cardinals and other prelates, his confidents, 
 for the purpose of consulting what was to be done under these crit- 
 ical circumstances. He endeavored to make himself friends by pro- 
 
 ' Ibid. p. 228. ' Tom. II, p. 194. 
 
 ' V. d. Hardt. torn. IV, 1 p. 23 sq. 
 
COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. 105 
 
 mises and presents. Already lie entertained the desi,2;n, as it is said, 
 to appear before the council, and on many points confess his guilt as 
 a sinful man; but to deny other things, and to claim that being pope, 
 he could be deposed only for heresy. But there was no intention of 
 pushing matters to an extreme. The crimes charged were of a nature 
 so grossly bad, that the council must have hesitated about the propri- 
 ety of bringing such matters into public discussion, to the disgrace of 
 the papacy and of the church ; matters which could not fail to scan- 
 dalize many. It was considered a better course, not to enter into any 
 further examination of these matters, but only to take advantage of 
 the bad position of the pope to induce him to resign, and thus make 
 the way easier to an extermination of the schism. When this pro- 
 posal was laid before the pope, he was at first very glad of an oppor- 
 tunity to get out of his worst difficulty so easily. But he concealed 
 his satisfaction, and assuming a serious mien, declared himself inclined, 
 foT the sake of the peace of the church, to resign, if the other two 
 popes would also do the same, since in this case alone would it be of 
 any use.i But having somewhat recovered from his first fright, John 
 began to assume again a more haughty tone. He drew up such forms 
 of abdication as still left him a subterfuo-e, so that he mii^-ht avoid the 
 necessity of laying down the papal office. Men had learned caution 
 from earlier experiences, and were disposed in all cases to be on the 
 look out: hence they had some objections to find with each of the 
 three forms of abdication which the pope proposed. It evidences the 
 utter shamelessness and moral stupidity of Balthazar Cossa, a man 
 conscious of such infamous crimes, that he w^as still capable of begin- 
 ning the third form of abdication in words like these ; 2 "Although the 
 most holy father is bound by no vow, by no oath, or promise, which he 
 may have given, yet he promises and vows, for the sake of the peace 
 of the christian people of God and the church, that he will of his own 
 free accord give them peace by his abdication, in person, or through 
 his authorized agents," etc. Finally, John consented, on the first of 
 March, to present before the assembled council a form of abdication 
 such as should be prescribed for him. This announcement excited 
 great joy, and the Te Deum was sung. Still an abdication of the 
 pope conditioned on the proviso, that the other two popes should also 
 do the same, failed of giving perfect satisfaction by reason of the con- 
 dition itself, since it was impossible to reckon on the course which the 
 other two popes might take. Now as the emperor Sigismond was 
 about making a journey to Nice for the purpose of treating with Pope 
 Benedict about his resignation, Pope John was strongly urged, for the 
 sake of putting an end forever to all evasions, to give the emperor 
 himself full powers, or to send in his company an agent fully author- 
 ized to make the abdication in his name at once. But in the mean- 
 time, John had succeeded in bringing over to the side of his interests 
 a number of princes and prelates ; he might hope to sow discord in 
 
 * V. d. Hardt. torn. IV, p. 41, and the resident at the Roman court in Constance, 
 words of Theod. of Niem, who then was a torn. II, c. 3, p. 391. 
 
 2 Tom II, c. 21, p, 234. 
 
106 PAPACY AND CnUKCn COXSTITUTIOX. 
 
 the council, since many were still too much entangled in the old church- 
 system, to feel at liberty to approve any sterner measures against the 
 pope. Not only were the Itahans of this temper, or else inclined to 
 the interest of the pope in other wavs, but a breach was alread v threat- 
 ening to take place betwixt the freer party, which consisted of the 
 Germans and the English, and at whose head was tlie emperor, and the 
 French deputies on the other side. But this division was fortunately 
 prevented by the exertions of the emperor. Thus the pope struggled 
 every way against the above proposition, as if by following it he 
 would compromise his dignity. He proposed to make the journey him- 
 self to Nice for the purpose of treating with Pope Benedict. But 
 taught by the experience which they had had of Benedict XIII. and 
 Gregory XII., the council had no confidence in the sincerity of this 
 proposal, and feared that the pope, having once got away from Con- 
 stance, would endeavor to eflfect a dissolution of the council. In vain 
 had the pope endeavored to soften the heart of the emperor Sigis- 
 mond, in whom the more liberal party ever found their strongest sup- 
 port, by the present of the golden rose, consecrated on palm-sunday, 
 a mark of honor with which princes were seldom gratified by the 
 popes ; in vain did he pretend that the climate of Constance did not 
 agree with his health, as an excuse for leaving that city, to be followed 
 by attempts to break up the council ; the emperor pointed out to him the 
 unsatisfactory character of these pretences, and offered him any more 
 agreeable spot which he might choose for a residence in the vicinity 
 of Constance. Already rumors were afloat about the pope's designs 
 to get away from Constance, and secret directions given to those hav- 
 ing custody of the gates, not to allow him to escape. The pope con- 
 tradicted all such rumors before the emperor himself. Meanwhile, 
 Duke Frederic of Austria, according to the plan agreed on with the 
 pope, came on the 20th of March to Constance, and while he was di- 
 verting the public attention by a magnificent tournament on the next 
 following days, Pope John escaped in the darkness of the evening, dis- 
 guised as a groom, and fled to SchaS'hausen. 
 
 Balthazar Cossa, whose conscience seems to have been completely 
 blunted, could now, under the protection of Dake Frederic, and at a 
 distance from the council, breathe more freely : he could now more 
 easily indulge the hope that he should yet succeed in sowing discord 
 among the prelates of the council, and effect its dissolution, as well-dis- 
 posed persons of that time feared he might do. He put forth from 
 Schaffhausen letters in justification of the course he had taken, full of 
 holy pretensions. Sometimes he justified his flight by pleading danger 
 to his health from the unfavorable climate of Constance, compelling him 
 to take this course ; sometimes he complains of the emperor, as hinder- 
 ing the free action of the council, putting restrictions on the pope him- 
 self, and threatening him. He used in justifying his conduct the words 
 which we have already cited, words so customary in the diplomatic 
 style of hypocrisy, " It was a fear such as might overcome even a 
 steadfast man." He summoned the cardinals and papal officials to 
 meet him at Scha8"hauseii on pain of the ban. Many actually com- 
 
COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. 107 
 
 plied with the summons. Thcj travelled backwards and forwards 
 between the council and the pope, executing the pope's secret commis- 
 sions ; and they succeeded in stirring up contention in the council. 
 IMany began already to say, No pope, no council, and the council 
 seemed disposed to remove to some other spot. Already the worst 
 was to be feared. The canonical priest, Zacharias of Urie, a native 
 of Constance, and the historian of the council, who wrote at this mo- 
 ment, makes the complaining church express her fears, that, as at Pisa, 
 the schism instead of being healed was multiplied, so from the council 
 of Constance would result an increase rather than a cure of the evil. 
 The pope would succeed, under the protection of Duke Frederic, in 
 escaping to Bologna ; he would establish his authority as pope in Italy ; 
 the council would choose a new one ; neither Gregory nor Benedict 
 would resign ; and then there would be four popes at once.^ But by 
 the constancy of the independent members of the French, German, and 
 English nations, by the vigorous measures of the emperor Sigismond 
 and his cooperation Avith Chancellor Gerson, who was even then, called 
 the soul of the council (anima concilii), it was so managed, that the 
 infamous man, who still called himself pope, and to whose selfish inte- 
 rests many lent their support, did not succeed in carrying out his 
 maxim. Divide et impera. 
 
 Gerson, in compliance with the request of the university of Paris, held 
 before the assembled council, on the 23d of March, a grave discourse 
 in exposition of the new and freer system of ecclesiastical law, boldly 
 setting forth the principles already propounded by him, and on the 
 recognition of which, he believed, all independent action of the council 
 mr.st be based. In this discourse, he defines the idea of a general 
 council as follows : 2 "It is an assemblage of all orders of the catholic 
 church convoked by legitimate authority, excluding no person, whoever 
 he may be, that demands to be heard, and for the purpose of deliber- 
 ating and determining in a wholesome manner, on all matters relating 
 to the needful guidance of the church in faith and manners." He 
 proceeds to say, " If the church or general council decrees anything 
 relating to the guidance of the church, the pope is not so exalted even 
 above positive law, as to be authorized arbitrarily to annul such decrees, 
 in the way and in the sense in which they were decreed. Although a 
 general council cannot annul the pope's plenitude of power, conferred 
 on him by Christ in a supernatural way, still it may modify the use 
 of that power by determinate laws, and by confining it within a certain 
 range for the edification of the church, with reference to which the papal 
 power, as well as all other authority entrusted to man, was instituted. 
 And this is the ultimate basis of all church reformation. A church 
 assembly may be convoked in many cases without the express sanction 
 and the express proposal of the pope, though he may have been law- 
 fully elected and still living. One case is when he is accused and 
 challenged to hear the church, according to the direction of Christ ; 
 
 ' V. d. Ilarclt. torn. I, p. 179 sq. ^ Gersonis orat. in v. d. Hardt. torn. II, 
 
 p. 272. 
 
108 PAPACY AXD CnURCn COXSTITUTION. 
 
 and he obstinately refuses to call a meeting of the church. Another 
 case i^, "when important aflfliirs are to be deliberated upon in a general 
 assembly and the pope declines to convoke it. Another case, when it 
 has already been determined by one general council that another shall 
 be held at a certain time ; and the last case, whenever a lawful doubt 
 exists with regard to the pretensions of several individuals contending 
 with each other for the papal office. The authoritj^ of this council is 
 such, that whoever seeks knowingly, in a direct or indirect manner, to 
 dissolve it and destroy its authority, or to remove it to another place, 
 or to set up another council in opposition to it, subjects himself to the 
 suspicion of creating a schism, or a heresy." Such an one may be 
 accused before the council, and must defend himself before the same, 
 to whatever order he may belong. That the council is greater than 
 the pope, is evident from the words of Christ, that the offending broth- 
 er should be accused before the church, a law which admits of no ex- 
 ception. Now then, if the pope gives occasion of scandal to the whole 
 church, and perseveres in it to the great injury of faith and good 
 manners, ought he not to be punished according to that law ? ^ 
 
 This discourse was communicated to the cardinals by the emperor 
 Sigismond, at first in manuscript ; but such as w^ere governed by the 
 spirit of the party, and devoted to the papal interest, could of course, 
 only condemn the principles here expressed. They declined being 
 present at the time the discourse was delivered, lest by so doing they 
 might seem to give countenance to the principles set forth in it. The 
 Patriarch, John of Antioch, ventured to lay down positions, standing in 
 direct contradiction to those principles. He was an advocate for un- 
 conditional papal absolutism. From the fact that Christ had given to 
 Peter the power of the Keys, he inferred that, in the pope, as succes- 
 sor of the apostle Peter, resides all plenitude of ecclesiastical power ; 
 all authority of the church and of a general council could only proceed 
 from him ; the council therefore was subject to him, not he to the 
 council ; without him no council could subsist ; he was responsible to 
 none other than the Lord ; and though he plunged multitudes of souls 
 into hell, no one could call him to account.^ It is easy to see what 
 might be expected from the advocates of such a bent: and such 
 principles. It must be confessed, were required, in order to defend such 
 a pope as Balthazar Cossa. Cardinal d'AIlly called the patriarch to 
 account on the spot, for maintaining such positions : as he also refuted 
 them afterwards in a book. The patriarch, beset on all hands, ex- 
 cused himself by saying, that he had expressed these views, not as 
 assertions, but by way of disputation. 
 
 After much controversy between the cardinals devoted to the papal 
 interest and system, and the liberal rnen in the council, on whose side 
 stood the emperor Sigismond, it was finally brought about that, in the 
 fourth session of the council, on the 30th of March, the princi[)les ex- 
 pressed by chancellor Gerson were proclaimed in the name of the 
 whole council. This notable session, constituting an epoch in the pro- 
 
 » P. 278. » Tom. II, p. 297 ; torn. IV, p. 60. 
 
COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. 109 
 
 ceedinfrs of the council, expressed the following principles, to wit : ' 
 
 Firsts that this council, lawfully assembled in the Holy Spirit, and 
 representing the catholic church militant, has received its authority di- 
 rectly from Christ, which every one, to w^hatever order he may helon^'-^ 
 even though it be the papal, is bound to obey in whatever relates 
 to faith and to the extermination of schism. Secondly^ that Popo 
 John is not authorized to remove the Roman court and its officials to 
 another place. This canon, as it was drawn up in the assembly of the 
 nations, had however attached to it an important addition — ^"in all 
 things relating to the reformation of the church in its head and mem- 
 bers." But against this clause, as also against many other points at 
 variance with the hitherto prevailing system of the church constitution, 
 the cardinals had protested ; and the cardinal Francis a Zabarellis, 
 bishop of Florence, commonly known under the name of the " Floren- 
 tine cardinal," otherwise a man rather disposed to favor reform, had 
 taken the liberty to omit this clause in the proclamation of the canon.2 
 With this, however, the council was not at all satisfied ; and it was 
 carried, in spite Ox all protestations on the part of all the cardinals, that 
 the bishop of Posen should, in the fifth session on the 6th of April, read 
 this decree in its unabbreviated form. Meantime the cardinals, owing 
 to iho, connection known to exist between several of them and the 
 worthless John, and owing to their protests against the freer proceed- 
 higs of the council, were rendering themselves, every day, more sus- 
 pected and more hated. In this struggle of parties at the council, 
 was manifested a contrariety of view^s, which did not augur any favor- 
 able issue. One overture, handed in to the council by a prelate, and 
 which certainly was based on some foundation of truth, deserves notice. 
 He proposed, that in all transactions relating to the reformation of the 
 church in its head and members, the cardinals should not be allowed 
 to participate, inasmuch as they were a party concerned, and there- 
 fore could not be judges. The cardinals, Avhose duty it was to elect as 
 pope the best man, or at least one not altogether bad, having knowingly 
 elected so abominable a man, and by this abuse of their power given 
 so great scandal to the whole church, had by so doing rendered them- 
 selves unworthy of participating in the election of a pope ; they de- 
 served other punishments, but for these reasons should not be allowed 
 to share in these transactions of the council. It was, moreover, al- 
 leged against them, as a reason for excluding them from these transac- 
 tions, that they had rendered themselves liable to suspicion by the fact 
 that several of them had followed the pope in his scandalous flight, 
 whereby he had given ofience to the whole church ; that they had as- 
 serted, on their return, that a council without the pope was no council, 
 but only a conciliabulum ; that so long as the pope was not deprived 
 of his authority, or this authority was not suspended, no man, however 
 
 ' Em, a Schelstrate tractat. de sensu et ' Thus Gobelinus Persona, who was 
 
 auctoritate dccretorum Constant, eoncilii present at the council, reports : Cosmo- 
 
 sess. quarta et quinta circa potestatem ec- drom. in Meibom. rer. germ, torn, I, Hel- 
 
 clesiasticam, cum actis et gestis ad ilia maestadii 1688, p. 339; also v. d. Hardt. 
 
 spectant, Komae 1686, p. 226. torn. IV, pp. 87, 88. 
 
 VOL. V. 10 
 
110 PAPACY AND CHmCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 I- 
 mighty, however endowed with spiritul gifts, nor the council even, 
 could effect a reformation ; because Pope John would always find men 
 ready to stand up for him, ready to be made rich by him ; would al- 
 ■wavs find purcliasers of dignities, and therefore means to replenish his 
 exchequer.^ At this time appeared before the assembled council a 
 messenirer from the Uulversitv of Paris, the Benedictine Gcntlanus, 
 and delivered a violent discourse against the pope and the cardinals.'^ 
 lie complained that through the papal party the business before the 
 council was delayed to the injury of the church. Ever since the be- 
 ginning of November, the transactions had been strangely retarded 
 by the pope and the cardinals, by many unprofitable transactions, un- 
 til the 1st of March, on which day the pope had laid before the coun- 
 cil a form of abdication. But when invited to nominate commissioners 
 with Rill powers to carry. In his name, this abdication into effect, he had 
 constantly declined ; and the cardinals, who followed him in this, had 
 delayed matters by continually proposing amendments, to the great 
 hazard of their souls, and to the great injury of this council. Then tlie 
 pope liad paid no regard to his oath, had fled by night in disguise, for 
 the purpose of breaking up the council, abandoning everything for 
 ■which it was his duty to sacrifice himself. But a great part of the car- 
 dinals had followed the pope, hoping to go to Italy or to some other 
 agreeable spot. But as they had not succeeded In their designs, some 
 of them, out of shame, had come back ; others, as they had disgraced 
 themselves, remained behind in Schaflfhausen, lest a worse thing might 
 befal them. Then, the cardinals had opened negotiations with the 
 council, designed to retard its proceedings by mere talk. As an ex- 
 ample of their intrigues, he states that cardinal Francis Zabarella had 
 been bold enough to proclaim that decree respecting the supreme au- 
 thority of the council, in a mutilated form ; taking upon himself the 
 liberty of thus trifling with the council. Men who thought themselves 
 entitled to take such liberties as these, deserved no longer to be admit- 
 ted to the deliberations. What sort of people these cardinals were, had 
 been shown by their election of Pope John. They had sworn to choose 
 the best man ; but they had still chosen that John, whom they well knew 
 at the time was a tyrant in disposition, an assassin, a man guilty of si- 
 mony, and stained with other crimes. If a person like this was the 
 best man among them, what sort of men were they themselves ? The 
 present evils had grown out of those earlier ones. The pope and the 
 cardinals and their faction sought daily, by all they did, to bring it 
 about that this council, exhausted by excessive labor and expense, 
 should be compelled to break up. They ought no longer, then, to be 
 trusted ; but all fellowship with them should be withdrawn by those 
 who would not perish with them in their sins. They ought no longer 
 to be trusted, for they trifled with the council. Who, indeed, had ever 
 given greater scandal to the church, than this Pope John and his friends, 
 with their retainers ? those traffickers who, in so unheard-of a man- 
 ner, had higgled away, in bargains, as they would swine in the market, 
 
 ' Gobelin, p. 340. ^ V. d. Ilardt. torn. II, p. 180 sq. 
 
COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. Ill 
 
 bishoprics, abbacies, canonicates, and parish-churches. In fact, the 
 bulls were drawn up, not in the apostolical chancery, but in the count- 
 ing-houses of bankers or merchants, among the Florentines. Christ 
 drove the sellers and buyers out of the temple ; the pope and liis ad- 
 herents had brouglit them into the temple, and caused their tables to 
 be set up there. Let the council, theref )re, in order to bring to nought* 
 these deceptive arts, proceed undistur))ed in their decrees, and make 
 . use of the power which God liad given them. Let them but approve 
 themselves as constant men in Constance^ — so he conchided — and 
 the Lord would give them the victory, and crush Satan under their 
 feet.2 
 
 But such voices could have no other effect than to lead the cardi- 
 nals to maintain their rights with so much the more decision, and to 
 stand up for the prerogative of the Roman church, without which no- 
 thing could be done. It was only with great difficulty that a breach 
 could be prevented between the two stiffly-opposed parties. The coun- 
 cil, in strict conformity to the principles which had been announced, 
 acted as the highest independent tribunal of the church. The pope, 
 flying this way and that, addressed to the CQuncil extravagant demands, 
 with which they could not properly comply, as the price of his abdica- 
 tion, and so spun out the negotiations. They finally resolved, therefore, 
 to take the last decisive step, without paying any attention to the pro- 
 tests of those cardinals who were devoted to the pope. The pope's 
 trial was made the order of the day, and in the seventh session, on the 
 2d of May, a citation was issued for him to appear before the counciL 
 
 Duke Frederic of Austria had, in the mean time, been compelled 
 by the emperor Sigismond, to surrender into his hands the person of 
 Pope John, and he was conveyed to Ratolfszell, a few miles from Con- 
 stance, and there held in close confinement. The council had set for- 
 ward the acts of the process — the witnesses were heard. On account 
 of the heavy charges brought against him, he was first, in the session 
 of the 14th of May, suspended from all spiritual offices ; and then, in 
 the eleventh session, on the 29th of May, was pronounced upon him the 
 solemn sentence of deposition. Amon<2; other char<2;es brou"-ht a^-ainst 
 hmi was one^ that he stubbornly denied the immortality of the soul. 
 It is indeed by no means improbable that a dead faith, or superstition 
 sufficient to hush an accusing conscience by outward modes of expung- 
 ing sin, may accompany a life as stained with crimes as was that of 
 Balthazar Cossa ; but still the conduct of this awfully wicked man be- 
 comes more explicable to us on the supposition of a decided and con- 
 scious infidelity. The council, in pronouncing upon him the sentence 
 of deposition on account of his ignominious flight from Constance, on 
 account of his perjury, of the scandal he had given to the churcli, of 
 his promoting schism, still reserved to itself the right of proceeding 
 against him on account of his other transgressions, with greater or less 
 severity, as might seem good to the assembled fathers.^ On the next 
 
 ' A play on words: Si in Constantia ^ Gobelin. Cosmoflr. act. VI, 1. 1, p. 341. 
 constantijs fueritis. * V. d. Hardt. torn. IV, p. 281. 
 
 * V. d. llardt. torn 11, p. 284. 
 
112 PAPACY AND CHURCn COXSTITUTIO!T. 
 
 day this sentence, passed by the council, was shown to Balthazar Cossa, 
 in his prison at Ivatolfszell. He testified repentance for his former 
 life, calmly laid off the papal insignia, and handed them over to the 
 deputies, and declared that, from the time he had put them on, he had 
 not enjoyed one quiet day. Balthazar Cossa was then removed to the 
 castle of Gottleben, not far distant from Constance, and given over to 
 the custody of the palsgrave Louis of Bavaria. 
 
 By the deposition of Balthazar Cossa, one important obstacle in the 
 way of restoring peace to the church was removed. Negotiations 
 were now opened with the other two popes, Gregory XII. and Bene- 
 dict XIII. The council had uniformly, in compliance with the advice 
 of its wiser members, followed the principle of not allowing itself, in 
 relations so new and extraordinary, to be governed by the letter of the 
 hitherto prevailing laws ; but to proceed with freedom, as the greatest 
 good of the church required. So they acted in the present case. 
 They were ready to give way in everything, provided only the schism 
 could be utterlv exterminated, and unitv restored to the church. With 
 Gregory XII. this course succeeded. It having been intimated to him 
 that he might convoke the council anew and then recognize it, he did 
 so, and then gave in the desired abdication, before the council, by his 
 delegate Malatesta. Benedict XIII. was, to be sure, more obstinate ; 
 and nothing could be done with him. But by far the greatest part of 
 the Spanish nation, which had thus far been devoted to his person, 
 now deserted him and recognized the council. Thus in the year 1417, 
 they had happily resolved one of their problems, and restored unity to 
 the church. It was at present a council almost unanimously recog- 
 nized by all the nations of Western Christendom, and the deputies of 
 the Spanish nation now added themselves to it, so that from this time 
 it consisted of five nations. But two problems now remained to be 
 resolved : the long-desired reformation in the head and members, and 
 the choice of a universally-acknowledged pope. The last was not a 
 matter of very great difficulty, provided the form of papal election 
 could be so arran";ed that all foreim and disturbing]: influences could 
 be kept out of the way, and the chief influence in the selection could 
 be secured to the better and wiser members of the council. Neither did 
 so much depend on the person of the pope, provided the general guid- 
 ance of the church were better ordered, provided that limits were set 
 to all abuse of the papal authority, all arbitrary proceedings of the su- 
 preme pontiff, by means of an ecclesiastical legislation ; provided a 
 higher tribunal could be instituted, before which even popes might be 
 arraigned in case they abused their power. Much more difficult was 
 the resolution of the first problem ; for this could never be carried out in 
 a thorough manner, without conflicting with the selfish interests of many 
 corporations and individuals. And particularly if papal authority should 
 be restored, this might easily succeed, as at Pisa, in frustrating any 
 thorough-going reformation of the church. 
 
 Already, in the month of August of the year 1415, a committee 
 from the cardinals and deputies of the nations, — a collegium reforra- 
 atorium, — had been appointed to consult on the affairs connected with 
 
COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. 113 
 
 the reformation of the church ; and this committee had continued its 
 dehberations. Many propositions of a more Hberal stamp had been 
 discussed and settled respecting the improvement of the church con- 
 stitution, the extermination of many abuses, ecclesiastical extortions, 
 the matters of penance and indulgence, free church elections, the 
 veneration of relics and of saints, the control of papal authority. Sol- 
 emn processions of various kinds had been appointed for the purpose 
 of imploring the divine blessing on the reformation of the church. 
 But, it must be confessed, the corruption of manners which reigned in 
 Constance during the meeting of the council ; the multitude of prosti- 
 tutes, who had found theii way into that city ; the bad example which 
 so many set ; simony which was practised during the very acts of 
 reform ; all this furnished no very promising augury of a successful 
 result. And even while the business of the council was proceeding, 
 serious men stood forth, and spoke plainly to the assembled prelates, 
 on the open contradiction between their Hves and the promise of a 
 church reformation. We may notice here, in particular, discourses 
 preached by the Franciscan Bernard Baptisatus (Baptise) during the 
 Deliberations on these matters in the year 1417. He says: i " The 
 masses and processions and other things we busy ourselves with, have 
 little or no value in the sight of God, through the fault of many Phari- 
 sees, who come here and pray to God in the temple." In all this he 
 saw no true penitence, no devout prayer. " The prelates, alas ! — 
 says he — have come to such extreme pride, that they hardly consider 
 the people worthy of praying to God for the same things ; they hardly 
 can join them in imploring the divine grace or in singing the Veni 
 Creator spiritus. He then distinguishes different classes of Pharisees 
 assembled at the council — graduates, w^ho never attended mass, ser- 
 mons or processions ; holders of benefices, also parish priests, lazy, 
 immersed in the business of the world, without devotion ; men who 
 served not God, but lived after the flesh. A second class were those 
 who visited the Lord's temple, but whilst there, whispered falsehoods, 
 laughed and made fun, slept, or carried on indecent conversation. A 
 third class were those who came to church with a long train of attend- 
 ants, standing in the way of the processions, and staring about on all 
 sides. He mentions, as a fourth class, those who made a trade of 
 ecclesiastical things. They bought or sold. Such simony, he affirms, 
 could not be extinguished by sermons and tracts, but only by the 
 execution of the law ; the persons guilty of it should meet with con- 
 dign punishment. The fifth class consisted of those who busied them- 
 selves with science, but not science relating to divine things, but with 
 the study of the poets, of worldly philosophy, and especially of juris- 
 prudence. He styles the Roman court — of which it was said, it 
 cared nothing for the sheep but only for the wool — not a divine court, 
 but a court of devils. He hints that it had been revealed to one of 
 the council, that unless simony should from henceforth be exterminated 
 from the church, and the tyranny in it cast down, a dreadful persecu- 
 
 ' V. d. Hardt. torn. I, p. 881. 
 
 10* 
 
114 PAPACY AND CHCRCH COXSTITUTIOX. 
 
 tlon would shortly start up against the clergy, such as had never been 
 before. On the degeneracy of the clergy he uses the strong language 
 that they had already almost -wholly gone over to the devil. Then 
 addressing himself to those who had to elect the new pope, he says: 
 *' Be you no Pharisees ! Suffer not yourselves to be bribed by money 
 in this election, as was done before. ^ Suffer not yourselves to be mis- 
 led by ignorance, to be disturbed by fear, to be turned aside by par- 
 tiality for any one." 
 
 Everything now depended on the question whether the election of a 
 pope or the reformation of the church should be the first thing to be 
 looked after. This must have been well understood by all who had at 
 heart the best good of the church, all the unprejudiced, all who were 
 not bribed by some particular interest. Let us hear how the enlight- 
 ened Nicholas of Clemangis, — who, having now retired from the din 
 of the world, busied himself in silence with the study of the bible, and, 
 remote from the passions which agitated others, formed • his opinion 
 from the experience of the past, — how this man contemplated the 
 then situation of the council of Constance. Writing about the council 
 to his friend, Nicholas de Baya,2 he says : '* What are we clergymen 
 to do amid so many evils that affect us, and the still greater ones that 
 threaten us, except to arm ourselves with the invincible shield of 
 patience, and with the deepest contrition of our souls have recourse to 
 the weapons of our Avarfare, which are tears and prayers ? Had the 
 church zealously and in a manner worthy of her, long ago, betaken 
 herself to these weapons, she would have secured the alleviation of 
 her own troubles, and thus of many others which affect the whole 
 world. But how is she to sorrow over others' evils, if she cannot weep 
 over her own which are so grievous and deep-rooted ? How is she to 
 help others, if she is too feeble to help herself, or so careless as to 
 neglect to do it ? " The first and most important thing of all, he says, 
 is to find out the cause of the distemper : It is the anger of God, 
 which men have drawn upon themselves. He then proceeds : " If we 
 would labor, then, to any effect for the healing of these wounds, we 
 must proceed in this council in a very different way from what has 
 hitherto been done ; and as I hear is done by the majority of ours who 
 are still disposed to go to this council, not so much to seek peace for 
 the church as to carry on the business of soliciting benefices for them- 
 selves. For I understand that some are departing with huge rolls of 
 petitions, others with recommendatory letters from their princes, others, 
 and especially the bishops, with a view to maintain their rights of col- 
 lation and of patronage. Thus nearly all go to the council to seek 
 their own, and but very few to promote whatever makes for peace and 
 for the cause of Christ ; when, however, the truth is, as we have been 
 taught by the experience of so long a time, that those are only means 
 for keeping up and perpetuating the schism. Believe me, such per- 
 sons ought never to have been selected for this business, persons of 
 
 ' Doubtless an allusion to the choice of ' Ep. 102, p. 290 sq. 
 Balthazar Clossa. 
 
COUNCIL OP CONSTANCE. 115 
 
 wliom ifc is to be expected, that they will do more by their covctous- 
 ness to perplex the cause, than they can do by any zeal for peace to 
 promote it in any way ; but we should have chosen men who were 
 especially free from ambition, and inspired with zeal for peace and 
 church unity from heartfelt love, who would not do fawning homa'/e to 
 popes for the sake of gain, would not be slaves to party zeal, but seek 
 to form alliances for the promotion of a wholesome concord, and not 
 their own private ends. For who could hope that the unity of the 
 spirit in the bond of peace, could ever be restored amidst ^o much 
 ambition, amidst such corrupting flattery, so many quarrels growing 
 out of party zeal ? The Holy Ghost, the Author and mediator of 
 peace, is not wont to be called down by such arts. Peace comes with 
 the Holy Spirit to those who seek it in guileless love, not with the 
 prompting of carnal inclinations. For although the majority may dif- 
 fer from one another in their wishes and votes, as usually happens in 
 councils, yet all must agree in love, that is, all must strive, out of 
 charity, for concord. Those who do not so, deserve not to assist in 
 counsels for peace, which they are wont to destroy more than to pro- 
 mote. Those who from a love without guile seek for concord, do 
 not defend their opinions with proud and pertinacious passion ; do not 
 with self-glory rank themselves above others in understanding and 
 wisdom ; do not seek diligently their own gain, their own glory and 
 promotion. Such the Holy Spirit visits, such he assists, such he en- 
 lightens. Such, enlightened from above, see what is right, what is 
 good, what is to be followed, what is to be avoided, in affairs ; which 
 others, blinded by the dust of their passions, are not wont to see. 
 For the anointing of the Holy Ghost teaches them all things, and 
 inspires them by secret influences with all that is profitable and health- 
 ful." In order to participate in this guidance of the Holy Spirit — 
 he savs — those who would assist at the council must mve themselves 
 to true repentance, and employ every means of grace, to purify their 
 souls from sin, and render them fitter temples for the Holy Spirit. 
 If he who is preparing for fellowship with Christ in the communion, 
 betakes himself earnestly and in every way to acts of penit-ence, how 
 should not he who would prepare his soul for the indwelling of the 
 Holy Ghost, be solicitous above all things to have it cleansed and 
 placed in suitable order for such a resident. " Of what use — says 
 he — are masses, processions, and public invocations of the Holy Spi- 
 rit, if the dwelling of the heart be not prepared for his reception ? 
 What is it to invoke the grace of the Holy Spirit with a stupefied and 
 polluted conscience, but to invite him with the hps, and exclude him 
 by the manners ? God regards not the fine sounding voice, but the 
 well ordered soul, — not the sweet gracefulness of harmony, but purity 
 of conscience." And he held it necessary that not only those who 
 personally attended the council, but all who had at heart the good of 
 the church, should participate in this work of preparation. " In order 
 to pray rightly for this laudable union, not only should this prepara- 
 tion of the soul be made by those that attend the council, but the 
 prelates should stir up the catholic people everywhere to take the 
 
116 PAPACY AND CIIUIICH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 same course." And according to the ancient custom of the fathers, 
 thej should appoint fasts and other penitential exercises for the peo- 
 ple ; and when they are thus, so far as Imman frailty allows, more 
 generally purified from the stains of sin, the prelates should appoint 
 solemn processions to appease the divine anger, which the clergy 
 should attend, with fasting and weeping, in sackcloth and ashes, set- 
 ting an example to others, and the whole community should accom- 
 pany them with their prayers. During the whole sitting of the coun- 
 cil should processions be made ; and the princes should join in them, 
 not in princely state, but in simple and humble garb, or in the habili 
 ments of mourning, as we read concerning the king of Kineveh. 
 And all catholic kings should for once lay aside their mutual enmities, 
 and attend the council in person, except those who might have reason- 
 able excuse for absence. First, because by their authority, the par- 
 ties might be more easily induced to engage heartily in the business 
 of establishing peace, and would stand in far greater awe of them than 
 they did of the prelates and cardinals ; next, because their presence 
 would contribute to give the council a more perfect feeling of security 
 and ease. And should there be some persons present inclined to 
 make difficulty and disturbance, they could not so easily carry their 
 purpose into effect. In case these things were done, he saw some 
 prospect of a new and more glorious condition of the church through a 
 reformation in its head and members. 
 
 Thus wrote Clemangis near the beginning of the council. But, after 
 having watched from a distance its doings for a period of more than 
 two years, he could not but perceive how very far short of his de- 
 mands the council had fallen ; and his anxiety about the final issue 
 could not but be immeasurablv increased. He writes to the members 
 of the council ; i '' Men assembled for the express purpose of establish- 
 ing peace on a sure foundation for the christian people, ought first to 
 strive after peace with God for themselves, and then seek to preserve 
 among each other the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, that 
 Satan may not stir up new divisions among those who are contending 
 for the repose and peace of God's people. Satan had already, as he 
 was informed, tried by various devices to spread among them his nox- 
 ious poison, and to divert them by many a cunning trick and delusion 
 from their holy purpose, sometimes by drawing them away from the 
 principal matter and plunging them into other strife-begetting ques- 
 tions, sometimes by impelling them to new elections through the rest- 
 less uneasiness of the ambitious, sometimes by throwing in their way 
 new difficulties growing out of one cause and another. And probably, 
 this father of lies and of all wickedness would never be quiet, but 
 would seek to ruin the cause by new devices, so long as they could 
 avail anything. But it was their business, amid all these difficulties 
 and hindrances, to defeat his malice by their wisdom ; and they must 
 confine all their solicitude to the great object, if their renowned as- 
 sembly convoked for the reestablisment of peace, was not to break up 
 
 * Ep. 112 ad concilium gencrale, p. 311. 
 
COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. 117 
 
 without accomplishing its purpose. For sliould such a thing ha[)pen, 
 . "which God forefcnd ! then farewell to the unity of the church ; ahout 
 the reestablishment of which such great hopes had been excited. Men 
 would utterly despair of it ; and the scliism among the Latins them- 
 selves would, like that between the Latin and the Greek churches, 
 become an incurable one. Let them not desist, however, from their 
 purpose, since God had already done so much for it, since by their suc- 
 cess in removing two of the contending popes out of the way, they had 
 peace, as it were, already in their hands. Let them not be moved by 
 the violent demands of some, to proceed prematurely to the election 
 of a new pope ; they could not, in the present circumstances, do a 
 worse thing for the church. Let them not imitate the actions of those, 
 who with good reason were blamed by them. Those over-hasty elec- 
 tions had, in fact, brought ruin on the church : they had caused the 
 schism to strike still deeper root, and plunged the church into those 
 coils out of which it could not possibly be extricated, if the council 
 should again proceed, before establishing the unity of the church on a 
 safe foundation, to a new papal election. He warns them against the 
 influence of ambitious men, who were seeking nothing but their own 
 benefit ; of whom the world and the church were so full, that in com- 
 parison to them, the rest were but few. Men had hitherto suffered 
 themselves to be controlled too much by such persons, had bestowed 
 too much attention on the mere distribution of benefices. Lei them 
 from the example of the past, then, take warning with regard to the 
 future. The choice of a pope should be the very last thing of all. 
 He proposes that the council in the meantime, should make an ordi- 
 nance empowering the bishops to attend to the distribution of the bene- 
 fices. He believes that it would on the whole, have been much better 
 for the Roman church, if it had not taken all this into its own hands, 
 had not thus been diverted from the repose of meditation, and entangled 
 in so much secular business. Theyshould not let themselves be drawn 
 aside by these minor affairs from the one great business. Nay, it were 
 better that the benefices should remain for a longer time vacant, than 
 that the looking after the greatest good of the entire church should 
 thereby fall into neglect. There was not one way only, there were va- 
 rious methods by which the heavenly physician could heal the distem- 
 pers of the church ; and he lets them be discovered by those who earn- 
 estly seek them: opens to those who humbly knock. If the objects 
 attempted in one way, did not succeed, if they could not bring things 
 themselves to harmonize with their plans and purposes, they ought, 
 rather than give up, to accommodate themselves to circumstances : as 
 a wise man says, " If you cannot do as you will, then you should do as 
 you can." It was affirmed by many that one thing had been settled 
 — which, however, he would not believe — namely, that neither of the 
 three rival popes should be elected again. Were they certain, then, 
 upon whom the lot of the Holy Ghost would fall, or was it right to 
 think of setting a limit or imposing a law on the Holy Ghost, who alone 
 could guide the choice, and govern the souls of men ? What was the 
 meaning of limiting the Holy Ghost by man's arbitrary will, except 
 
118 PAPACY AND CnURCII CONSTITUTION. 
 
 to exclude him entirely ? If the saying of Paul was irrefragable, 
 that ^Yhere the spirit is, there is liberty, how could we hope that the 
 spirit would be there, where libertj^ was not ? Might it not possibly be 
 the case, might not that case perhaps be just at hand, that unless they 
 elected one of these individuals, they could not restore concord ? In 
 such a case, any one surely could easily see, what course would be 
 best, whether to elect such a person, or to go home without peace, 
 lie calls God to witness, that he did not say this out of favor to any 
 man, but by reason of his sympathy with the suffering church. Assur- 
 ed\y Clemangis was right in bringing the experiences of the past as a 
 warning for the council ; certainly he was right in exhorting them 
 against the over-hasty choice of a pope, in warning them against the 
 plans of self-willed cunning, in inviting them to shape their course ac- 
 cording to circumstances ; but with all the true things which he says 
 in this letter, it is still easy to understand that, although he might not 
 be willins: to confess it himself, his old inclination in favor of Benedict 
 XIII. governed him ; and he would have gladly persuaded the council 
 to acknowledge him unanimously as pope, which, however, would hardly 
 have been the suitable means then, either for restoring union to the 
 church or for its reformation. i 
 
 The emperor Sigismond had the Germans, English, and French on 
 his side, when at the beginning he insisted that the reformation should 
 precede the election of the pope. But the Italians and Spaniards were 
 too strongly devoted to the old system to be able to reconcile it with 
 their sense of propriety, that a council should any longer subsist with- 
 out a pope. The cardinals were bound together by the esprit du corps, 
 with the exception of two who agreed with the emperor. They feared 
 that too many things would turn up contrary to their own interest 
 from the freer tendencies of the council. They exerted an influence, 
 also, on the other nations. The French nation, on whom D'Ailly had 
 a great influence, were gained over to the project of hastening the 
 papal election. The emperor found himself left alone with the Eng- 
 lish and Germans. The German Doctor, who had charge of the ex- 
 ternal affairs of the council, and served under the palsgrave, describes, 
 in his simple and honest German style, the strong apprehensions which 
 were felt that the reformation would be frustrated, if the election of a 
 pope should be pushed forward first.2 The emperor and the party 
 attached to him were called upon from many quarters to be careful 
 not to depart from their plan. We may notice the speech of Stephen 
 of Prague, probably Stephen Paletz, that fierce enemy of IIuss, the 
 man in whose eyes it was a damnable heresy to assert that the church 
 
 ' This interest in favor of Benedict is would ride home, as soon as he had done 
 
 evidenced also, when in the 132d letter ad up his own business ; and so the reforma- 
 
 licjiinalduin, p. .'336, he traces the evils in tion would never take place. And more- 
 
 IVancc especially lo the circumstance, that over, when a pope was chosen, it' tlie thing 
 
 the lej^itimate pope Benedict had been pleased him, he would set about it; if it 
 
 treated so abusively. di<l not please hini, he would not have it. 
 
 ' " But the An<rhci and Germani want- Tiie whole matter, then, depended on the 
 
 ed to have the reformation done before the pope ; and so they let the matter hang ; 
 
 election. And if that were to be done and not a thouirht more was had about it." 
 
 when the choice was made, every one V. d. liardt. torn. IV", p. 1397. 
 
COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. 119 
 
 Could subsist without a visible head. Yet even he felt himself con- 
 strained to demand before all things else the reformation of the clnn-ch. 
 Undoubtedly he had sufficiently experienced amidst the commotions In 
 Bohemia, that It was nothing else but the crying abuses In the cliurch 
 that had operated most powerfully In calling forth those reactions. 
 He invited the council before they elected a pope to proceed to the 
 suppression of heresies, a business which it was competent to, even 
 without a pope, as It was more than the pope and the cardinals, and 
 by the guidance of the Holy Ghost infallible in matters of faith. ^ 
 Speaking of the reformation needed in the mode of appointing to 
 church offices, he says : " By reason of the many advantages, the 
 wealth and honor connected with ecclesiastical offices, the foolish and 
 the wise, the young and the old, the bad and the good, the learned 
 and the unlearned, strive to obtain them. All seek either by good 
 means or by bad, to attain to the fat spiritual prebends. They are 
 ready to move heaven and earth, expose themselves to great dangers 
 and great hardships, such that if they endured the same for God's 
 sake, they would win the crown of martyrdom ; they will degrade 
 themselves to the filth of kitchens, and to the menial service of grooms, 
 for the sake of getting promoted to spiritual benefices." We may 
 call to mind the agreement between this account and the language 
 already cited of Chancellor Gerson, and of Henry of Hessia. He in- 
 vites the prelates of the council in particular, now that they were 
 approaching the end of their work of restoring peace to the church, 
 to be on their guard against the devices of Satan, who was seeking to 
 thwart this object, was now exciting so much the more division among 
 them as his time was short. So we find a letter also from an unknown 
 person, who, being a bishop of no diocese, calls himself a vagrant in 
 the world,2 portraying to the emperor the corruption of the church in 
 all Its orders, and urgently inviting him to forward the cause of refor- 
 mation. So we find the archbishop of Genoa delivering a speech and 
 exhorting the emperor to perseverance In promoting the work of re- 
 form.3 But the most violent opposition to this course came from the 
 part of the cardinals, who In the month of September presented two 
 protests against the Interference of the emperor and the efforts of the 
 German party, against whom they tried to excite suspicion. They 
 complain, that although the larger and sounder part of the council, 
 the French, Italian and Spanish nations, and the cardinals, two excepted, 
 were of one mind on the subject, the Germans pertinaciously offered re- 
 sistance. ^ They labor to show, that the greatest danger grew out of 
 the long continued vacancy of the papal chair. The council, by per- 
 
 ' V. d. Hardt. torn. I, p. 833. ^ Pilei, archiepiscopi Genuensis paraiiie- 
 
 ' E;i:o enim Ileinricus mobilis, episco- sis, ibid. p. 812. 
 
 pus nullius dioeceseos, vagorum vagus. * Tres nationes, Italiae videlicet, Galli- 
 
 licet minimus inter ceteros nostrae con- ae et Hispaniae, quae faciunt multo majo- 
 
 gregationis ministros ad hoc deputatus, rem et saniorem partem concilii, et ultra 
 
 legatus seu nuncius specialis, missus in dicti domini cardinales illam acceptaverint 
 
 universum orbem, omnia videns, veniens caet. Schelstrat. p. 256. 
 visitando limina beatorum Petri et Pauli, 
 etc. V. d. Hardt. tom. I, p. 801. 
 
120 PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 mitting this, T\as inflicting the greatest injury on its own credit. In 
 manv districts men were still undecided as to the stand which they 
 meant to take in regard to this thing, and were waiting for the elec- 
 tion, to see whether it would so turn out, that they could recognize 
 the person to be elected as lawful pope. Alreadyreports were in cir- 
 culation about divisions in the council. Already men talked of some 
 constraint under which it must labor.' It was to be feared, that if 
 the election should be longer delayed, a new pope would be chosen at 
 Rome, and find acknowledgment throughout all Italy. It was to be 
 feared, that by some circumstance or other, the dissolution of the 
 council — a thing no doubt which the cardinals themselves with their 
 allies could do a great deal towards bringing about — might take place 
 before any step had been taken towards the election of a pope : 
 and how then could they ever succeed in having a universally recog- 
 nized pope, when there was no pope to convoke a council ? Thus 
 these cardinals could never find it in their power to accept the princi- 
 ples of a freer church law ; the old Roman church-system ever lay at 
 the bottom of their creed. They complained that the Germans had 
 left unanswered for three months their invitation that they should 
 unite with themselves in deciding on the form of the papal elec- 
 tion, which, to be sure, the Germans had done, but for the good rea- 
 son, that the German party were for deferring everything else until 
 the reformation of the church had been secured. They avowed that 
 those who were ever standing in the way of the election of a pope, 
 made themselves suspected of promoting the schism, inasmuch as the 
 church, so long as it remained without a universally acknowledged 
 head, was not restored as yet to its true unity. They washed their 
 hands of all blame, should great dangers and mischiefs be found to 
 spring out of this want of a universally acknowledged pope ; they 
 threw the responsibility of all this upon the Germans alone. They labor 
 to show that the reasons given by the latter for postponing the election, 
 were no reasons at all. They themselves also and the other three na- 
 tions shared with the Germans the interest which the latter expressed 
 for the reformation of the church, as they had indeed also taken their 
 part in the transactions on that subject ; but there was nothing to hin- 
 der them, while proceeding to the election of a pope, from acting also 
 at the same time on the matter of church reform. The most im- 
 portant thing in the reformation of the church, was to provide, in 
 the first place, that the church should have a universally acknow- 
 ledged visible head ; for the body without the head was a mutilated 
 carcass. How could men speak of a reformation while this deforma- 
 tion still continued to exist ? To the unity of the church belonged 
 two conditions, the union of the members among themselves, and their 
 union with the head. The first they had attained ; the second was 
 
 ' Nee non ctiam, quod quorundam, qui re. Ibid, p. 257. We may probably un- 
 
 eidcm conoilio adhaescrunt, propter ru- dcrstand here a malieious allusion to the 
 
 mores diseordiarum, et (juasi impressio- pretended limiting influence of the empe- 
 
 num. quas in eoilum concilio fleri audiunt, ror Sigisraond. 
 fides jam de eodem eoueiliodicitur vacilla- 
 
COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. 121 
 
 still wanting, and this, therefore, should be the first thing to be brought 
 about. Already the people were uttering against the Germans such 
 reproaches as these : " They were inclined to the heresy of the Huss- 
 ites, to believe that the church had no need of a visible head. A 
 card was handed about containing twelve points which required deci- 
 sion, among which were the following : Whether it was proper to say 
 that, the apostolical chair being vacant, as all know it to be now, no 
 new election was to be made ; but that after such a vacancy, the 
 church may remain, for a long and undefined time, without a head, 
 and without any canonical arrangement relating to the form of the 
 future election ; whether this was contrary to divine law, contrary to 
 Christ's direction with regard to his vicars and the successors of 
 Peter? Whether it was heretical, or appeared at least to favor he- 
 resy, and particularly the Hussite heresy, condemned by this council, 
 to say that the church could be better governed without a pope, 
 thtin with his authority and that of the Roman church ? Whether it 
 was erroneous to assert, that it was a less mischief for the church to 
 be wholly without a head, than to be deprived of the reformation of 
 the head ? Whether to assert that the Roman and universal church 
 could not be reformed in the right way without depriving her of the 
 temporal goods with which she had been superfluously endowed by 
 the princes, was not something erroneous and akin to the Hussite 
 heresy ? In the propositions here thrown out, many of which very 
 closely resemble what is to be found in the protest of the cardinals, 
 we see manifested a disposition to find already in the Germans a spirit 
 hostile to the secularization of the church, together with a fear that 
 some attack might be made on the excessive wealth of the church 
 by a council acting freely without a pope. In this suspicion and 
 these complaints against the Germans lies a prophecy ; although they 
 were really at this time far from entertaining any such thoughts of a 
 church revolution. Meantime Robert Hallam, bishop of Salisbury, 
 one of the most free spirited members, and the most zealous for church 
 reform, had died at the council. He had communicated, especially 
 to the J]ngHsh nation, the free reformatory spirit. After his death, 
 the English deputies were more easily drawn over to the other party. 
 The Germans alone stood faithfully by the emperor Sigismond ; but 
 they singly could not carry the matter through without producing a 
 schism in the council, and bringing about its dissolution. But the 
 Germans before they gave in, published on the 14th September, 
 1417, in apposition to the protest of the cardinals already mentioned, 
 that well known protest which so characteristically marks the Ger- 
 man spirit, from which the great Reformation was destined one day 
 to proceed : " Whereas, they had in these days been repeatedly 
 called upon to send some from their body to deliberate about the 
 election of a pope, which, in their opinion, is undertaken prema- 
 turely and unreasonably, as it was by their predecessors ; and whereas, 
 the German nation, among other nations, has been rather violently 
 beset; a nation — so they characterize themselves — devoted to 
 God, patient and humble, and yet by God's grace not without 
 
 VOL. V. . 11 
 
122 PAPACY AND CnUBCn COXSTITUTION. 
 
 power, but inclndin;^ in itself, besides the imperial monarcby, eight 
 illustrious kinf^doms," etc. They then <zo on to notice the suspicions 
 above mentioned, that thej promoted schism, favored the heresy of 
 Wicklif and IIuss, and remark : " These false criminations and 
 calumnies this nation has hitherto,- for the sake of peace and the pre- 
 servation of concord, preferred patiently to endure, rather than by 
 manifesting impatience and being zealous for their own honor, expose 
 themselves to be charged by the other nations with creating discord 
 among brethren." Far from them was it to think that the church 
 could be governed without a pope, or that a longer vacancy of the 
 papal chair was useful ; yet they believed that such vacancy would, 
 perhaps, be still more dangerous, where the guidance by a council did 
 not exist as a matter of fact. And perhaps it had already been more 
 dangerous, for the two years during which the council had so many 
 opponents to contend with, so many kingdoms, which now had attached 
 themselves to it. Therefore the danger at present seemed to 
 them to be less. And since the preceding decline of the church was 
 owing to the schism, therefore it was especially necessary, in order to 
 guard against divisions for the future, to provide for the reformation 
 of the head, and of the Roman court, on which future papal elec- 
 tions must moreover depend ; and from this point these elections should 
 be fixed and settled by the most sacred laws. The church from its 
 commencement onward had been thus governed by the apostle Peter and 
 the other apostles and their successors, those most devout shepherds, 
 who cared not for money but for souls,^ through a period of almost a 
 thousand years ; in a word, so long as heavenly interests were valued 
 more highl}^ than earthly ; but it must be acknowledged as a painful 
 fact, that for the last 150 years, or thereabouts, several popes with 
 their courts had been devoted to the fleshly life, immersed in worldly 
 pleasure, and thus they had sunk downward to what was still worse, 
 had forgotten the things of heaven, had taken no concern whatever in 
 the welfare of souls and things purely spiritual, but looked merely at 
 what was subservient to gain, had usurped to themselves, by resorting 
 to any means, the rights of other churches. The papal reservations, 
 which spurned all laws, and which enabled them to determine the 
 appointments to all ecclesiastical offices, are cited as an example. 
 They had brought all tribunals under their own control ; decided on 
 all matters, even secular ; dispensed unusual indulgences for money ; 
 and finally they had amassed such an amount of wealth, that 
 many of them could enrich all their kinsmen, and some had even 
 sought to make them princes. And hence, and especially owing 
 to the neglect of prolonging general councils of reform, covetousness, 
 ■which is called idolatry, paying court for spiritual dignities, heresy 
 and simony, had spread far and wide. From these causes had sprung 
 the most dangerous schisms, which some cardinals, of different and 
 
 ' V. d. Ilardt. torn. IV, p. 1419: Deo archiam octo rcgna inclyta continentem 
 
 devotam. patientcm et huinilem nationem cact. 
 
 Germanicani, per dei gratiam iion magis ' Devotissimos pastores, non pccunia- 
 
 iinpotciitein, sed praeter impcrialcm moa- rum, sed animarum. P. 1421. 
 
COUNCIL OP CONSTANCE. 123 
 
 perhaps hostlloly disposed nations, had in carnal temper promoted and 
 cherished. Pomp and display hvA increased among the clergy. 
 Hence the study of the sciences had declined ; church structures and 
 monasteries had fallen to deca}'' ; their landed property had remained 
 uncultivated and uncared for ; and their valuahle movable property 
 had been S(juandcred away. Only the rich, men versed in pecuniary 
 affairs, the frivolous, the general vagrants, the ignorant, the vicious, 
 and a few capable men, were, in utter contempt of the devout and 
 learned, not only promoted, but in God's temple preferred above all 
 others, as by an undeniable right of succession. Distinct prominence 
 was given to the matter of indulgences as constituting the worst of 
 these abuses ; — the notion that sins could be estimated at a certain 
 price and the pardon of them sold.i It was because the laity had 
 seen such things done before their eyes, and had been so scandalized 
 thereby, that they looked with contempt upon the once so highly 
 esteemed order of the clergy, and regarded it as more an antichristian 
 than a christian inscitutlon.^ The German nation, it w\as said, had 
 learned wisdom by the experience obtained at Pisa. It had seen how 
 the expectation of a reformation of the church, excited by solemn pro- 
 mises and assurances, had been disappointed ; how after the choice of 
 two popes the evil only went on from worse to worse ; how vice and de- 
 pravation of manners still worse than the schism now to be extermi- 
 nated, had spread far and wide. They demanded that first of all, 
 this corruption, as the plague which tainted the whole body of Christ, 
 should be exterminated from the house of God, that the pope, as a 
 pure and holy man, might be elected by pure and holy men.^ They 
 demanded, that whatever appertained to the above described degene- 
 racy of the church, should be so removed, that the church might be 
 governed for the future after the example of that more ancient church 
 governance, by which she had been guided a hundred and fifty years 
 before, and in conformity with the old ecclesiastical laws ; but this 
 after the removal of those abusive ordinances which had been invented 
 to favor the Roman church. They conclude by saying : " It is sooner to 
 be borne and more salutary, that the Roman church should remain vacant 
 for a time, while the general council has the direction. It is to be wished 
 that the papal chair should in the first place be carefully purged of its 
 defilement, lest the future pope, even though the holiest man should be 
 elected, might, if he sat in the midst of these abuses, become himself 
 defiled.-i The Germans then proceed to invite the fathers of tha 
 
 ' Sub colore appretiandavam charta- vam putredinem, antequam pastor apos- 
 
 riim, crimina delinqucntium, aut gratia tolicus mundatus, sanctus et Justus, et per 
 
 dispensatiouum, praecise secundum quali- mundatos, sanctos et justos eligatur, prae- 
 
 tatem suam, ut res profanae taxantur, abu- nuuidare, et domum dei ab inveteratis foe- 
 
 sioncs niauifeste nefaudas coiumittcudo, tidis, muudandis maculis expiarc. Pag. 
 
 indulucntias inconsuctas pro pecuiiiis lar- 1423. 
 giendo. P. 1422. * Expedire videtur omnino, pontificalem 
 
 ^ Ecclcsiasticum statum, qucm ab olim catbcdram prius diligenter purgari, et Ho- 
 
 devoto cultu reverebatur. nunc tanquam munani ccclesiam decoris moribus illus- 
 
 amplius riguisset, levipendat, ut et ilium trari, quam futurum praesulem, etiamsi 
 
 apud ulicjuos magis antichristianum quam sanctissimus eiigatur, in istis abusionibus 
 
 christianum fore putet. P. 1423. sedendo, commaculare. P. 1424, 
 
 •* Ex ovili dominico tanquam infccti- 
 
124 PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION^. 
 
 council, they adjure them bj the duty of their high calling and by the 
 fear of God, to unite with the German nation for this end, that ere 
 they proceed to the election of a pope, efficient decrees be published 
 at a public session relating to everything needful in order to reforma- 
 tion ; and that then, and not till then, they should proceed to the busi- 
 ness of settling upon the right mode of electing a pope, and to the 
 actual election, which would in this case prove to be an easy afflxir. 
 The German nation protested before God, before the host of angels, 
 and before the entire church, to the assembled council, that if they 
 refused to proceed in the way required, it would not be the fault of that 
 nation, but theirs, that the bride of Christ, the holy mother church, in- 
 separable from her bridegroom, was not restored to purity and freedom 
 from all stain, and in being thus restored, brought back also to perfect 
 
 union. 1 
 
 Thus the German nation replied to that protest of the cardinals, a 
 document by which, as appears evident from the tone of the declara- 
 tion, they felt themselves wronged ; and thus they flung back the 
 charges thrown out against them. This was the last word spoken in 
 behalf of reform. Even the emperor and the Germans were obliged 
 to yield at last ; as they saw that nothing could be done. It was 
 still required, however, that the pope should bind himself, immediately 
 after the election and previous to the coronation, to proceed, before 
 undertaking any other business, to the work of reform. 
 
 When the question, however, came to be discussed, in what form the 
 resolution containing this requirement should be drawn up, it was de- 
 clared, in opposition to the Germans, that a pope once chosen could not 
 be bound, — a premonition of the course which matters were to take.^ 
 Meanwhile a great deal was said on the subject of the church reform ; 
 but there was an evident conflict between the interests, principles, and 
 wishes of the different nations. Yet one event transpired which was of 
 great moment ; in a certain sense it might be said to constitute an epoch 
 and lay the foundation for a new church constitution. In the 39th 
 session the following resolution was adopted : that the frequent ap- 
 pointment of general councils was a principal means of rooting out tares 
 from the field, counteracting heresies and schisms, and promoting the 
 reformation of the church. The neglect of holding such synods hitherto 
 had occasioned much harm. It was therefore resolved that a general 
 council should be held in five years, then in seven years, and from 
 thenceforth every ten years. The pope should, a month before the 
 conclusion of every general council, make known the place of the next 
 council, to be selected with the concurrence of this whole assem- 
 bly, lie could, for weighty reasons, if the circumstances required 
 it, anticipate the time of convoking the general assembly, but should 
 never pass beyond the terms above designated. Accordingly, it would 
 
 * Protestatur haec natio Germanica co- quominus sponsa Christi, sancta mater ec- 
 
 ram deo. tota curia coelesti, universali cc- clesia, suo sponso inconvulsa, purior et 
 
 clesia etvobis, quod nisi feceritis pruemis- inimat-ulata reiormetur, et rcforinata ad 
 
 sa modo et ordine supra dictis, quod non pcrfcH-tain reducatur unitatcm. T. 1424. 
 
 per cam, sed per vos stat, stetit et stabit, ^ ISchelstrut. p. 269. 
 
COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. 125 
 
 amount to this : that always either a general council should be actu- 
 ally in session, or soon to be held. If for particular reasons, how- 
 ever, such as war or a siege, the place previously designated for the 
 council should prove unsuitable, the pope, with the concurrence of the 
 cardinals, or two-thirds of them, might select a new place, belonging to 
 the same nation with the place first designated, unless the same hin- 
 drance existed in reference to the whole nation ; and in this case, he 
 might convoke the council in some other place contiguous to this na- 
 tion. Yet all this should be made known a year before the opening of 
 the council, that all might have it in their power to be present at the 
 proper time. By carrying this law into effect, the pope's absolute power 
 would, to be sure, have been destroyed ; a limit would have been set 
 to his arbitrary will ; the execution of the papal authority would have 
 been subjected to constant oversight. But it was easier to draw up 
 such a law in words, than to reduce it to practice. How much was in- 
 volved in bringing about such frequent meetings of a general council! 
 While the contest was still going on between the Germans and the 
 other nations on the question, In what way the pope should be bound 
 to make arrangements for a reformation of the church, news came, that 
 a man entitled to the highest veneration, the bishop of Winchester, 
 uncle to the king of England, bound on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, had 
 arrived at Ulm. He was called in to act as a peace-maker ; and he 
 succeeded in bringing about an agreement, on the 30th of October. It 
 •was settled that the council should draw up a decree to the effect that 
 the pope to be elected should reform the church in its head and in the 
 Roman court, according to justice, and as the good government of the 
 church required, before the council was dissolved ; moreover the fol- 
 lowing points were expressly settled : 1. Relative to the number, the 
 quahty, and the nation of the cardinals ; 2. relative to the reformation 
 of the apostolical see ; 3. relative to the annates ; 4. relative to the 
 collation of benefices and gratifications in expectancy ; 5. relative to 
 the confirmation of church elections ; 6. relative to affairs which were 
 to be transacted and those which were not to be transacted in the Ro- 
 man chancery ; 7. relative to appeals to the Roman court ; 8. rela- 
 tive to the question for what causes and in what manner the pope 
 might be corrected or deposed ; i 9. relative to the extirpation of si- 
 mony ; 10. relative to dispensations ; 11. relative to indulgences. It 
 was determined that, after committees had been appointed for discus- 
 sing and settling these matters, the rest might return home. The car- 
 dinals had now, therefore, secured their object — that the deliberation 
 respecting the form of papal election should come first in order. Al- 
 ready had many of the freer voices, from the German nation as it seems, 
 demanded that the cardinals should have no part in the papal election. 
 We have seen, already, how their late choice of one of the most 
 abandoned men had been turned against them. It was not without 
 reason, therefore, that their influence was distrusted ; but they had no 
 intention to put up with this exclusion. One of them declared, that a 
 
 * Propter quae et quomodo Papa possit corrigi vel deponi. Sehelstrat. p. 271. 
 
 11* 
 
126 PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 council without a pope had no ri<^ht to alter the form of the papal elec- 
 tion ; that a pope chosen according to this altered form, would not be 
 acknowledged as lawful pope. They finally agreed upon this : that six 
 from each nation, together with tlie cardinals, should unite to form an 
 electoral colleire, and that he who received two thirds of the votes of 
 these electors should be recognized as lawful pope.^ Through the strife 
 of the different nations, of whom each wanted to have a pope from its 
 own body, another schism might easily have arisen. The Germans set 
 the example of sacrificing their own wishes and interests to the good 
 of the church, declaring themselves ready to give their votes for an 
 Italian ; they also prevailed on the English to yield. The French and 
 Spaniards were refractory at first ; but finally, after the invocation of 
 the Holy Ghost, on St. Martin's day in November, they were prevailed 
 upon to give place for the Holy Spirit as a spirit of concord ; and on 
 the same day, Cardinal Otto of Colonna was chosen pope, after the 
 election had lasted three davs. He called himself Martin the Fifth. 
 
 When it was found that the newdy elected pope did not proceed so 
 speedily as was desired, to the work of reform, the French deputies 
 betook themselves to the emperor, and begged him to press the matter 
 •with the pope ; but Sigismond told them, that at an earlier day, while 
 as yet there was no pope, it had been his duty to look after this matter ; 
 and when he had insisted that the reform should precede the pope's 
 election, they had opposed him. Now they had a pope as they desired ; 
 and to him, therefore, they should go, whose busitiess it ivas now.2 
 AVhen at length, the subject of reformation again came up for delibera- 
 tion, the Germans presented a draft from which we select the following 
 remarkable points. The business related to the cases in which the pope 
 might be corrected or deposed. It appeared to them that the pope 
 could be punished and also deposed by a general council, not only for 
 heresv, but also for notorious simonv, as well in reference to the sacra- 
 ments as to the bestowment of benefices, and for anv other notorious 
 transgression, whereby scandal was given to the church, if, when re- 
 minded of his fault in a lawful way, he proved to be incorrigible. Fur- 
 thermore, that the excessive indulgences which had been granted dur- 
 ing the time of the schism, and had extended to the pardon of a// sins, 
 should be wholly revoked. 3 Pope Martin subsequently drew up a plan 
 of reform which by no means answered the expectations of the nations. 
 In this plan some notice was taken of the two points just referred to, 
 ■which had been brought up by the Germans. In reference to the first, 
 it was observed, that it did not appear, and such was the judgment also 
 of several of the nations, how anything new could be determined on 
 that matter. In reference to the second, it was said the pope would 
 take care for the future, that there should be no too lavish dispensation 
 of indulgences, lest they might fall into contempt.4 And those granted 
 
 * V. d. Ilardt. torn. IV, p. 1452 sq. itus revocandac. V. d. ILirdt. torn. I, p. 
 
 « Gobelin. Pers. Cosm. p. 345. lUlO. 
 
 ' Quod indulgentae exorhitantur con- * Cavcbit dominus nostcr papa in futu- 
 
 cessac tempore schismatis, continentes re- rum nimiam indulgcntiarum etfusionem, 
 
 missionem omnium peccatorum, sint pen- nc vilescant. Ibid. p. 1038. 
 
COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. — MARTIN V. 127 
 
 since the death of Gregory XI., together with such as had been 
 granted for release from punishment and debt or full pardon of sin at 
 certain places, he revoked and declared null and void. Then still 
 greater advantages were gained to the papal interest by concordats 
 with the several nations. 
 
 The last session of the council on the 22d of April of the year 1418, 
 in which session the council was adjourned by the pope, was a scene 
 of great agitation. Before the close, the envoys of the Poles and the 
 Lithuanians appeared with a grievance. They had accused before 
 the council, a book of the Dominican, John of Falkenberg, who had 
 been hired by the German order of knights to provoke a war of exter- 
 mination against the newly converted Lithuanians and Poles, as con- 
 taining hurtful errors of doctrine. This book' had been examined and 
 condemned. But the thing they demanded, that the pope should ap- 
 point a public session in which the sentence of condemnation should be 
 proclaimed, they could not carry out, probably because the pope was 
 restrained by political considerations. They appealed, therefore, from 
 the pope to the next general council. But they were silenced by the 
 pope on pain of excommunication ; and Martin V. put forth, in the 
 last consistory of the cardinals at Constance, a constitution, by which, 
 in direct contradiction to the principles so distinctly laid down*^at Con- 
 stance, he directed that no one should be allowed to dispute any deci- 
 sion of the pope in matters of faith, and to appeal from him to a general 
 council. 
 
 This constitution of Pope Martin Y. was the occasion which led Ger- 
 son, towards the end of the council of Constance, in the year 1418, to 
 compose a paper ' in which he defended anew the principles of freer 
 church law expressed at Constance. He showed that by this consti- 
 tution, the principle relating to the supreme authority of the general 
 council proclaimed in that pubhc session at Constance, had been over- 
 turned ; and that inasmuch as it was by virtue of the same that John 
 XXIII. had been deposed and Martin V. had been chosen pope, the 
 legality of his own election, which rested on this principle, would be 
 perilled. He found fault with this constitution, as contradicting the 
 rule given by Christ himself, Matthew xviii., respecting appeal to the 
 judgment of the church. He went on the principle that the pope 
 was a man liable to sin and to error ; his decision therefore could not 
 be regarded as infallible. In proof he adduces the example of Peter, 
 whose successors the popes were, and cites the fact that Peter had 
 been corrected of a practical error by Paul ; and maintained that a 
 doctor of theology, as a successor of the apostle Paul in this regard, 
 might in a sermon publicly correct the pope. The decision of a bishop 
 or of a pope, in matters of faith, should, in reference to the extent of 
 the spiritual jurisdiction of either of these functionaries, bind only so 
 far to obedience as that none should deliver anything to the contrary 
 save where he might feel compelled to do so by the teachings of Holy 
 
 Tractatus, quomodo et an liceat in re seu ejus judicium declinare. Oner. torn. 
 in causis fidei a summo pontifice appella- II, p. 303. 
 
128 f PAPACY AND CnURCn CONSTITUTION. 
 
 Scripture, or the decisions of the church. Furthermore, he was of 
 the opinion, that among the immediate attendants of the pope, there 
 ■VN'as often a much greater want of men stored with knowledge, well- 
 experienced and grounded in pure doctrine, than at the universities, 
 where the study of the Sacred Scriptures was more sedulously pur- 
 sued. He maintained, that it was no less a duty to meet and confute 
 those errors which were at variance with the commandments, Thou 
 shalt not swear falsely, thou shalt do no murder, and Avhich threat- 
 ened the overturn of all public order, than to confute errors in doc- 
 trines of faith. Still Gerson somewhat modified these statements, out 
 of respect to the authority of the pope, by adding, that the constitu- 
 tion of the pope might perhaps admit of another interpretation, and 
 that the pope himself would best ward off such charges, by a decided 
 condemnation of such practical errors. 
 
 At the council of Constance, the next general council was appoint- 
 ed to meet, five years later, at Pavia. Accordingly such a council 
 was actually opened there, in the year 142.3 ; but on account of the 
 spread of the pestilence called the Black Death, it was dissolved and 
 transferred to Siena. But at Siena, also, only a few sessions were 
 held ; and on the pretence that the small number of prelates assem- 
 bled did not authorize the continuance of the council, in conformity 
 with the determination of the council of Constance, the next meeting 
 was appointed to be held seven years later, in the year 1431, at 
 Basle. Pope Martin V. nominated already as legate to this council, 
 and to preside over it, the cardinal Juliano Cesarini. At this impor- 
 tant crisis he died, and left behind this weighty business for his succes- 
 sor Eugene IV. Cardinal Cesarini had also received from the late 
 pope the commission, as his legate, to direct the proceedings under- 
 taken against the Hussites in Bohemia, with a view to bring them 
 back to union with the church. If we may credit his own words, the 
 direction of the council of Basle which the pope had imposed on him, 
 was regarded by him as a very unwelcome task. In his letter to 
 Eugene IV., hereafter to be mentioned, he thus expresses himself: 
 " I believe the whole Roman court is aware, how irksome to me was 
 that legation in reference to the council. At that time I had not a 
 visitor to whom I did not express my regret at the appointment." 
 He reminds the pope of what he had said to him personally on the 
 subject when the latter was still cardinal. " Willingly as I went on 
 the legation to Bohemia, as unwillingly did I undertake that other, on 
 account of many things which I then dreaded as to what might possi- 
 bly happen, and which I already begin to experience as having ac- 
 tually taken place." i From the circumstances of the times, the con- 
 flicting interests of the reformatory spirit everywhere rife and active, 
 a spirit which, especially in a Swiss city, might break forth with more 
 than ordinary violence, against the interest of papal absolutism, it was, 
 doubtless, easy to foresee the recurrence of severe contests ; and Ju- 
 
 ' Propter multa quae tunc vercbar pos- ribus Aeneae Silvii, cd. Basil. 1571, pag. 
 86 accidere, quae jam experiri incipio. 64 sq. 
 Epistola Juliaui ad Eugeniura IV. in ope- 
 
BEGINNING OF THE COUNCIL OF BASLE. — CESARINI. 129 
 
 Han might fear that he would become entangled in them. The busi- 
 ness in Bohemia would be easier for him, where the whole was re- 
 duced to the simple point of a contest between an heretical tendency 
 and the ruling church. While he was tarrying at Nuremberg he 
 received the news of Martin's death and of the new government of 
 Eugene. He now besought the new pope, by letter after letter, to 
 release him from the commission given him by Pope Martin, and ap- 
 point some other person as president of the council. He then tra- 
 velled further about in Germany, preaching the crusade against the 
 Bohemians. After this he returned to Nuremberg, where he received 
 from the pope his commission to repair to Basle, and take upon him- 
 self the charge of presiding over the council. As he heard, however, 
 that only a few prelates had as yet arrived at Basle, and as his pre- 
 sence in Bohemia seemed to him of more importance, he adopted the 
 expedient of appointing two ecclesiastics, John of Bilombar and John 
 of Ragusio, as his representatives for the present to preside at the 
 council, promising himself that, as soon as the Bohemian affair permit- 
 ted, he would repair to Basle and take the presidency upon himself. 
 Several causes, however, conspired, after he had formed this resolu- 
 tion, to induce him to alter his mind and to proceed immediately to 
 Basle. The unhappy issue of the campaign in Bohemia, and the 
 dangers that threatened the adjacent borders of Germany, created a 
 ■wish for the most energetic measures to renew the war, and the coun- 
 cil of Basle might furnish the best opportunity for bringing about a 
 combined effort to promote this object. Furthermore, Cesarini had 
 been led to observe, by the representations of the Bohemian nobles, 
 that the Hussite affair could not be disposed of by violent measures, 
 but that far more was to be hoped for from peaceful negotiations ; but 
 these also could be most conveniently managed by the general coun- 
 cil of Basle. His subsequent journey through Germany served still 
 more to convince the cardinal how necessary a general council was, to 
 satisfy the constantly disappointed expectations of a reformation of 
 the church, to reform the corrupt clergy who provoked the indignation 
 of the laity more and more every day, and, by giving assurance of 
 redress to the complaints of the people, to ward off the threatening 
 danger of a revolt against the church of Germany. JuUan himself, 
 in the above mentioned letter from Basle addressed to pope Eugene, 
 says on this point : " What impelled me to come here, is the false 
 position and the licentiousness of the German clergy, owing to which 
 the laity are exasperated beyond measure against the ecclesiastics. 
 Wherefore it is very much to be feared, that if they do not reform, 
 the laity will, after the manner of the Hussites, fall out with the whole 
 body of the clergy, as is already openly threatened." ^ 
 
 Pope Eugene, however, soon altered his resolution. The recollec- 
 tions of the council of Constance may have filled him with apprehen- 
 
 ' P. 66 : Incitavit etiara me hue venire quod valde timendum est, nisi se emen- 
 
 deformitas et dissolutio cleri Alemaniae, dent, ne laici more Hussitarum in totum 
 
 ex qua laici su^jra modum irritantur ad- clerum irruant, ut publice dicuat. 
 versus statum ecclesiasticum. Propter 
 
130 PAPACY AND CHURCH COXSTITUTIOX. 
 
 sions ; and he gladly availed himself of such pretexts as he found at 
 hand, to remove the council to a distance from a city which breathed 
 an atmosphere of freedom, and which, from circumstances connected 
 with the place, threatened to excite the same spirit in others. He 
 alleired as reasons, that the number of prelates assembled was so 
 small, while the time fixed for the opening of the council had already 
 elapsed ; that the disorders of war prevented the meeting of a greater 
 number of prelates ; that the contagion of the Hussite heresy had 
 spread into those districts, and many citizens of Basle, infected with 
 that spirit, were said to have threatened the clergy ; that already, 
 under the preceding pope, negotiations had been opened with the 
 Greeks on the subject of union, and these were unwilling to visit so 
 distant a city*; that among several Italian cities, Bologna had already 
 been selected by them ; wherefore, in order to the furtherance of so 
 •v\-eigh ty an affair, it was requisite that a council should be held at 
 Bologna, and he promised that he himself w^ould open that council in 
 person. But two general councils could not sit at the same time, 
 since thev must interfere with each other. For these reasons the 
 pope declared it necessary that the council of Basle should be dis- 
 solved, and appointed another, to meet in a year and half from that 
 time, at Bologna. He gave Cardinal Julian full power to carry this 
 decree into effect. i 
 
 But this scheme of the pope could not be carried into effect so easily. 
 There had already arrived at Basle many free-minded men, especially 
 from the lower order of clergy. Doctors of theology and of the canon 
 law, among whom we may mention one who stood most prominently 
 forth as representing the freer spirit at the council of Basle, who had 
 expounded the principles of the freer ecclesiastical law in a work enti- 
 tled Co7icordantia catholica, and who held a high rank in his times as 
 a theologian, philosopher, and mathematician ; Nicholas Krebs of Cuss 
 in Trier, known by the name of Nicholas of Cusa, or Cancer Cusanus. 
 One fact, however, especially worthy of notic.e — one striking token of 
 the reformatory spirit, of the universal consciousness that an eventual 
 reformation of the church had come to be a matter of urgent necessity 
 — was this, that while on all other occasions the papal legates were wont to 
 serve, in all respects, as the obedient instruments of the popes, it was 
 from Cardinal Julian himself the first earnest opposition to Pope Eu- 
 gene proceeded. Instead of executing the above commission, he sent 
 to the pope a communication in reply, representing to him the great 
 dandier which would result from followin^r out that commission, and 
 boldly expressing many plain truths. *' Had I — he writes 2 — been 
 present at the Roman court at that time (when the pope came to the 
 resolution of dissolving the council), and could I have known there the 
 dangers, which here perhaps (or not perhaps) are impending, you cer- 
 tainly would not have come with such a message, the very report of 
 "vvhich has already excited much scandal and great uneasiness. What, 
 
 * Ravnaldi annales (Lucae 1752) torn. * See the letter cited on p. 36. 
 IX, ad ami. 1431, ^>. 20, 21, p. 104, 105. 
 
BEGINNING OF THE COUNCIL OF BASLE. — CESARINI. 131 
 
 then, may we conclude, will happen, should the commission be exe- 
 cuted ? How much more advisable it had been to have intimated tliig 
 scheme to me, who am here in the -midst of the scene ; then, informed 
 of the whole state of the case, jou could have made up your mind 
 more maturely. How, indeed, is it possible to consult and decide 
 rightly, if the matter to be decided is not known in all its essential 
 circumstances. Let your Holiness patiently listen, whilst I state what 
 troubles have arisen here, and what imminent dancrer threatens ruin to 
 the faith. What would the heretics say, should the council be dissolved ? 
 Would they not exult over ours, and behave themselves more proudly 
 than ever ? Would not the church confess that she has been overcome, 
 since she ventured not to await the coming of those who have been 
 summoned (the Bohemian deputies invited to negotiation) ? how 
 great would be the shame brought on the Christian faith here ! Would 
 not men believe they saw in it the finger of God ? Armed troops have 
 often fled before them ; but now the universal church herself also flies ! 
 They cannot be overcome, then, either by weapons or by arguments ! 
 What would the whole world say, on hearing of this ? Will they not 
 say, the clergy are incapable of amendment, and are determined to 
 stick in their mire ? So many councils have been held in our days, and 
 no reformation has resulted from one of them. The nations were ex- 
 pecting that from this council some fruit w^ould come. But if it shall 
 be thus dissolved, it will be said, that we have trifled with God and 
 man. And as no remaining hope of our amendment will exist, the laity 
 will, with good reason, set upon us as the Hussites have done ; and in 
 truth rumors to that effect are already afloat. The minds of men are 
 full of mischief: they already begin to spew out the poison that is to 
 bring death to us. They will think that they do God an acceptable 
 service, in assassinating or robbing ecclesiastics. Because these will 
 seem to be sunk in the lowest depths of sin, they will be hateful to God 
 and men ; and the slight reverence which is paid them even now, will 
 then vanish entirely. This council was one means still, by which the 
 people of the world could be in some measure restrained ; but when 
 they see every hope dashed to the ground, they will let loose the reins 
 and persecute us openly. Alas ! what honor is it which is to accrue to 
 the Boman court for dissolving a council assembled for the reformation 
 of the church ! Assuredly, will all the odium, all the guilt and shame 
 fall back on them ; inasmuch as they were the first occasion of so great 
 an evil, and carried it to a higher pitch. 0, holy father ! far be it from 
 me that you should be liable to be called the cause of so great evil ! 
 At your hands will be demanded the blood of those that perish ! Of all, 
 even to the last farthing, you must render an account on that day. 
 What will you say then ? What reason will you be able to adduce ? 
 If God threatens so terrible a sentence upon those who off"end even the 
 least ones in the church, what shall be done when offence is given to 
 the whole church ? " '' And — he says afterwards — although, in case 
 the council remains in session, none of the good described should be the 
 result, still however, if it be dissolved, all will say. If the council had 
 not been dissolved, so many and so great benefits would have resulted 
 from it. And the responsibility for all this will be thrown on your 
 
132 PAPACY AND CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 
 
 holiness, and never ^vill jou be able to get rid of the stigma. And al- 
 though it is said, that such a prorogation and removal is made for a 
 good end, to the end that, at another place, if your holiness should be 
 present in person, still greater good might be effected, still nobody 
 "Nvill believe it ; because, they say, We were cheated at the council of 
 Siena ; and so we have been at this also. A legate was sent, bulls 
 "U'ere sent, and yet a change of the place and a delay of the time is 
 sought ! The heretics should be asked, whether they too are wilHng 
 to suspend, for a year and a half, the spreading of their poison. They 
 also who have been scandalized by the ugly lives of the clergy should 
 be asked, whether they will not be scandalized in the meanwhile. 
 Every day the abuses among the clergy give occasion of offence, and 
 yet shall the remedy be put off? Let all be done now, that can be done. 
 What remains, may be deferred another year and a half. I fear, that 
 ere another year and half have elapsed, unless the thing is provided for 
 in some other way, the major part of the German clergy will be de- 
 stroyed." He reminds the pope of the commission given to him in 
 reference to this council, and goes on to say : " If your holiness had 
 dreamt of dissolving this council so soon, it would have been better not 
 to have begun it. What does your holiness fear, as you have lived so 
 uprightly, that others rather have occasion to fear you, than you to 
 fear them ? " He then goes on to refute the other reaons broufrhtfor- 
 ward by the pope. If the pope himself could not come, on account of 
 illness, he could nominate representatives. This was not the first coun- 
 cil that had been held without the presence of the pope. As to the 
 safety of the place, nothing was to be feared on that score. The citi- 
 zens of Basle had promised in every form, as had been lately done at 
 Constance, to defend the council against every one. As from so many 
 quarters complahits had arisen, that the superfluity of worldly goods 
 had occasioned the corruption of the clergy, and many voices had 
 been heard to assert that the clergy must return back to their original 
 poverty, in order to become free from worldliness, so a solicitude might 
 here and there be created, lest the reformatory spirit of a council might 
 lead to the determination of depriving the clergy of all their wordly 
 possessions. In reference to such a solicitude, Julian remarks : "If 
 this council did not consist of men of the church, such a solicitude 
 might perhaps have some foundation. But what clergyman would 
 agree to any such resolution ? Not one. Not because it would be 
 contrary to the faith only, but contrary also to their own interests. What 
 laymen would agree to it ? None, or very few. And if some princes 
 should perhaps send delegates to the council, they would generally 
 send ecclesiastics, noways disposed to agree to any such resolution. 
 And the few laymen, who might appear there, would find it impossible 
 to get a hearing when affairs relating to the church were in discussion. 
 And I scarcely believe that among them all there would be present ten 
 secular lords in person ; perhaps not five. Then I do not believe that 
 this council will prove to be a greater one than that at Constance, or 
 that at Pisa ; and yet at neither of these councils was this question 
 introduced. The Holy Ghost had never permitted anything contrary 
 to the faith to be determined at any council ; why then was a different 
 
BEGINNING OF THE COUNCIL OF BASLE. — CESAKINI. 133 
 
 result to be apprehended from this council at Basle ? It betrayed a 
 -want of confidence in the Holy Ghost. 'J hen he says : " But I fear the 
 same will happen to us that happened to the Jews, who said : The Ro- 
 mans will come and take away our place and nation. Thus, by a 
 rip^hteous judgment of God, may it also turn out with us ; because we 
 are not willing that a council should be held, we shall lose our divine 
 goods. And would we may not also lose body and soul together. 
 When God has determined to send a calamity on a people, he first so 
 orders it that the danger is not understood and not regarded. So it 
 seems to stand at present with the men of the church, whom I often 
 accuse of blindness : they see the fire, and yet rush headlong into it." 
 " Never — says he — would any council have been held, if such fear 
 had seized the hearts of our fathers, as has taken possession of ours." 
 He then lays before the pope another well grounded cause for anxiety ; 
 for, as it was quite possible that the council of Basle would not consent 
 either to the removal . or to the prorogation of the council, a new 
 schism might be the consequence. It had been declared already, that 
 the pope's course stood in direct contradiction with the principles ex- 
 pressed at the council of Constance. Men seemed, moreover, to pro- 
 test in the stronfj^est terms aojainst it ; had said that to do anvthin"; of 
 that sort was the same as to prevent the extirpation of heresies, the 
 reformation of manners, the repose of the Christian people ; and con- 
 sequently the same as to promote heresies, war, and hatred. The 
 pope had given, as a reason for the measure he proposed, the 
 negotiations of union with the Greeks. To this the cardinal re- 
 plies : It was looked upon as a great folly, that on account of the un- 
 certain project of bringing back the Greeks to church union, the now 
 and ever faithful Germany should be left to fall into the heresy of the 
 Bohemians. For it was said, this was greatly to be feared, unless 
 some remedy should be speedily applied ; and that that song about 
 the Greeks had been already sung three hundred ye«irs ago, and was 
 every year sung over again. Both might be done, being good things ; 
 the first now, at a fixed and settled time ; the other, a year and a half 
 from now ; and all would very gladly afterwards come and attend the 
 proposed second council. He entreated the pope at least to putoflfthe 
 execution of this step until July. Meantime, the now existing mis- 
 chiefs and grievances would be removed, the call of the Hussites to 
 the council, and the preparations for the war with the Bohemians, would 
 no longer stand in the way ; for by that time everything would be 
 finished. Many arrangements might, during the same time, be made 
 for the reformation of the German clergy, and published in Germany ; 
 and thus something would be done ; and nothing could be laid to the 
 charge of the pope ; and that which, at the present time, would only 
 give offence, and could effect no good object whatever, might then 
 be done with more honor. He assures the pope, that all his faithful 
 servants felt greatly troubled about this matter, especially the arch- 
 bishops of Trier and of Regensburg, who were then present in Basle. 
 It seemed to them all that a lasting disgrace would fasten itself 
 upon the pope and the Roman court. 
 VOL. V. 12 
 
SECTION SECOND. 
 
 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY ASD DOCTRINE. 
 
 I. Movements towards Reform ix Englaxd. 
 
 That the greater freedom of thought resulting from the reaction 
 against the church theocratic system had its first beginning in Eng- 
 land, is to be attributed to various causes which prepared the way for 
 such an event. The high pretensions of the hierarchy since the time of 
 Innocent III., who sought to make the kings of England his vassals, 
 had, in this country, reached their acme ; and for this very reason the 
 nation awakened to the consciousness of independence, the advocates 
 of its rights, its government, and the free hearted men among its clergy 
 were aroused to opposition. In the thirteenth century, bishop Robert 
 Grosshead, or Capito of Lincoln, had set an example of courageous re- 
 sistance to that arbitrary will of the popes in disposing of church offices, 
 which was so fertile a source of corruption ; and in his writings were 
 scattered many seminal principles of reformatory truths, which long 
 continued to operate. It is apparent that the works of this man, who, 
 under the name of Lincolniensis, held a distinguished rank among the 
 scholastic theologians, were afterwards diligently studied by the party 
 of Wicklif in England and of Huss in Bohemia ; and these writings 
 seem to have had great influence in exciting a mode of thinking favor- 
 able to reform. Next alter this distinguished man followed that pro- 
 found and original thinker, Roger Bacon, whose whole mode of thinking 
 was also calculated to awaken a freer spirit. The contest betwixt the 
 mendicant friars — an order which spread, especially in England, with 
 alarming rapidity — and the University of Oxford and the parish priests, 
 who saw their rights encroached upon by the spiritual labors of these 
 monks, had in like manner contributed to make men conscious of the 
 abuses of the dominant church system, and to provoke attacks upon it. 
 In this contest, Archbishop Richard of Armagh distinguished himself, 
 as a forerunner of Wicklif, by his freedom of thought ; and he is often 
 cited under the name of Richard Armacanus, as a witness in favor of 
 the freer spirit, in the contest with the mendicant orders. There arose 
 in the English parliament, under the reign of Edward III., a spirit of 
 earnest zeal for the prerogatives of the state, and against the encroach- 
 ments of the pope upon its rights and its independence. Under such 
 
MOVEMENTS TOWARDS REFORM IN ENGLAND. 135 
 
 circumstances and influences, appeared the English refoniicr of whom 
 we are now to speak. 
 
 John Wicklif was born in the year 1324 in the villaf:;e of WjclilTe, 
 (whence according to the custom of this age he received his name) in 
 the county of York, not far from the city of Richmond. He studied 
 philosophy and theology at the University of Oxford, and obtained 
 there an academical degree. He soon distinguished himself by his 
 mental gifts, his freedom of mind, his zeal for learning, for the pros- 
 perity of the church, and the religious interests of the people. In his 
 pervading practical bent, we recognize a peculiarity of the English 
 mind, which has constantly been preserved. But to this was joined 
 in the case of AVicklif an original speculative element ; an element 
 which in these times was also especially developed among the English, 
 though at a later period it retired more into the back ground. He 
 subsequently occupied an important place in the philosophical school 
 of the realists, which maintained a fierce contest with the nominalism 
 that had revived since the time of William Occam. By his book " On 
 the reality of universal conceptions," De universalibus realibtis, he 
 had created an important epoch extending into the fifteenth century ; 
 and we shall perceive how closely combined together in him were the 
 philosophical and the theological elements, how much his theological 
 opinions were influenced by his reaUsra. Bold in his practical bear- 
 ing, never shrinking from any of the consequences resulting from the 
 principles which he advocated, he exhibited the same boldness and the 
 same consistency in the manner also in wdiich he carried out his specu- 
 lative conclusions. By his meditations on the sad condition of the 
 church in his time he was led to study the prophecies which came from, 
 or were ascribed to the abbot Joachim, and with which the men who 
 longed after a regeneration of the church busied themselves a good 
 deal at that time ; and thus arose the first w^ork in which he appeared 
 before the public and expressed his views on the corruption of the church. 
 This work, composed in the English language, and intitled," On the last 
 times of the church," has lately appeared by itself in a new edition. At 
 first Wicklif in his reformatory tendency found a friend in the primate 
 of the English church, Islep, archbishop of Canterbury. The latter, who 
 had been WickUf 's friend at the university, founded in 1631, at the uni- 
 versity of Oxford, the college of Canterbury Hall ; which was to consist of 
 eleven students under a master as their overseer (tutor.) Eight of these 
 students were at first secular clergymen, the three others, monks ; and 
 he appointed Woodhall, a monk, overseer.' The latter seems to have 
 been a turbulent, quarrelsome man, and fomented discord between the 
 secular clergy and the monks, who, as a general thing, could never 
 easily live on good terms with one another. This led the archbishop, 
 in the year 1363, to terminate the controversy, by declaring in favor 
 of the seculars, expelling the monks, and appointing Wicklif, — whom he 
 characterized in the installation, as a man in whose circumspection, 
 
 * Lewis, history of the life and suffer- (A new edition, corrected and enlarged by 
 ings of J. Wiclif, London, 1720, p. 8 sq. the author, Oxford, 1S20, p. 9 sq.) 
 
136 HISTORY OF THEODOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 fidelity and activity he had the utmost confidence, and to whom he 
 gave this post on account of his honorable deportment and his learn- 
 ing — master of the college. In the year 13G6, however, Islep died ; 
 and a man of an altogether different way of thinking, Simon Langham, 
 heretofore bishop of Ely, who, having been educated among the monks, 
 was their friend, succeeded him. When the monks who had been ex- 
 pelled from the college brought their complaints before Langham, he 
 restored them, and Wicklif lost his place. Thinking himself wronged, 
 Wicklif appealed to the Roman chancery. After the usual fashion 
 at the court of Avi<T^non, the cause met with delays. In the mean- 
 time, Wicklif had openly taken his stand on a certain question in a 
 way, which was not calculated to make an impression which would be 
 very favorable to him at that court. Pope Urban V. had, in the year 
 1365, demanded a thousand marks as quit rent, by virtue of the feu- 
 dal relation in which the English realm under king John Sansterre had 
 placed itself to the popes. ^ The English parliament declared, that 
 King John had violated his oath, in consenting to surrender so much 
 of the independence of the state for the purpose of paying such a tri- 
 bute ; for that King John was not authorized, without the concurrence 
 of the parliament, to place himself in any such relation to the pope. 
 Out of this arose a controversy. One of the mendicant friars wrote 
 in defence of the pope's cause ; but Wicklif appeared against him. 
 He expressed himself with great freedom in his paper on this subject.2 
 He attributed to the king the right, not only in concurrence with his 
 parliament to repudiate that quit rent, but also to bring the clergy, in 
 civil suits, before a secular court, to deprive them of any excessive 
 superfluity of worldly goods ; since this, although contrary, no doubt, 
 to many ecclesiastical laws, was still grounded, however, in the ancient 
 practice of the English reahn, in the constitution of the state, in the 
 laws of nature, and in Holy Scripture. We here perceive already 
 the early bent of the man, who made the sacred scriptures the ulti- 
 mate standard of all law, and who afterwards declared it to be the 
 great problem of church evolution, to reform everything according to 
 the principles therein contained ; as it was, in fact, his endeavors to 
 do this which procured for him the title of doctor evangelicus. Such 
 a procedure of Wicklif could not but contribute, in cooperation with 
 the influence of the monks of Avignon, to bring about an adverse 
 decision of his process at that court. So much the more, however, did he 
 by this step recommend himself to those who stood up for the prerogatives 
 of the state. They were at no loss to understand how useful to their 
 cause a man of such zeal, such courage,and such talents might prove, and 
 were therefore the more inclined to give him their support in his bolder 
 attacks on the hierarchy. He was made chaplain to the king ; 3 and 
 he attracted in particular the attention of the king's brother, the pow- 
 erful duke of Lancaster. His connection with this duke turned out 
 to be of great moment to Wicklif in his later contests. In the year 
 
 ' Vaughan.life and opinions of John de ' Ibid. p. 270. 
 Wycliffe, Lond. 1828, torn. I, p. 264 sq. ' Vaughan, torn. I, p. 277. 
 
WICKLIF A PATRIOTIC OPPONENT OF ROME. 137 
 
 1372 he ' was made doctor of theolo;^y, and now acquired a mighty 
 influence as well by his lectures as by his writings. He daily took 
 Btill stronger ground against the corruptions of the church, and was 
 carried along from one step to another in his progress as a reformer. 
 His polemics were aimed particularly against the mendicant monks. 
 He was enabled, at first, to attach himself to a general movement 
 of reform, at the head of which stood the government and the parlia- 
 ment itself; and it was well understood on that side how to turn his 
 talents to account. He had already expressed in various ways his 
 complaints of the extortions practised by the Roman court on the 
 churches, of its arbitrary interferences in church elections, its prac- 
 tice of conferring hh^h offices in the church on Italians who were unfit 
 for the spiritual calling, and ignorant of the language and customs of 
 the country. After an effort had vainly been made to remove these 
 grievances by negotiation with Pope Gregory XI., an embassy com- 
 posed of seven persons was sent to the pope in the year 1374 for the 
 purpose of effecting this object, and Wicklif was one of the seven.2 
 This embassy did not visit the seat of the papacy, but met the papal 
 nuncios at Bruges. The negotiations lasted two years ; and owing, 
 doubtless, to the mixing in of their own selfish interests by one or two 
 English bishops, it so happened that much less was accomplished than 
 had been intended at the outset. The share which Wicklif took in 
 these negotiations seems not to have been without influence on his de- 
 velopment as a reformer, since he was thus enabled to obtain a more 
 intimate knowledge of the spirit of the Roman chancery, of the cor- 
 ruptions springing from that quarter, and of the intrigues prevailing 
 there ; and was led to examine more closely into the rights of the 
 papacy, and to come out more vehemently in opposition to it as the 
 principal cause of the corruption in the church. He came to the con- 
 viction that the papacy had not its origin in divine right ; that the 
 church stood in no need of a visible head. He spoke and wrote 
 against the worldly spirit of the papacy, and its hurtful influence. He 
 ■was wont to call the pope antichrist, " the proud worldly priest of 
 Rome," 3 " the most cursed of clippers and purse-kervers." He says 
 in one of his papers,^ *' The pope and his collectors draw from our 
 country what should serve for the support of the poor, and many thou- 
 sand marks from the king's treasury for sacraments and spiritual 
 things " — which is aimed against the simony encouraged and promoted 
 at Rome. "And certainly — says he — though our realm had a huge 
 hill of gold, and no man took therefrom but this proud worldly priest's 
 collector, in process of time the hill would be spent ; for he is ever 
 taking money out of our land, and sends nothing back but God's curse 
 for his simony, and some accursed clerk of Antichrist to rob the land 
 still more for wrongful privileges, or else leave to do God's will, that 
 men should do without his leave, and buying and selling, etc.^ 
 
 > Lewis, p. 18, (newed. p. 21.) ^ Lewis, p. 32, (n. ed. 37.) 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 29 sq. (n. ed. p. 33 sq.) ' Ibid. And certes tho our rewme had 
 
 ' Ibid. p. 32 (u. ed. 37.) an huge hill of gold, and never other man 
 
 12* 
 
138 HISTORY OF THEOLOaY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 Already, in these first public acts of "Wicklif, we recognize princi- 
 ples which he did but still further unfold in all his subsequent labors a3 
 a reformer. It was to the cupidity of the church that led her to seize up- 
 on a foreign secular province, to the superfluity of worldly goods in the 
 hands of the clergy, that he felt compelled to trace the corruption in 
 the church. The aim of his eflforts was to bring the clergy to live wholly 
 to their spiritual vocation. They were, above all, to follow the pat- 
 tern of Christ in poverty, selfdenial, and renunciation of the world. 
 The example of their lives should give emphasis to their preaching. 
 Constantly hovering before the mind of Wicklif was that image of the 
 apostles preaching the gospel in poverty ; and that other picture which, 
 ever since the time of Arnold of Brescia, had been so often held up by 
 Apostolicals, Franciscans, Waldenses, of the worldliness, pomp, and 
 luxury of the corrupt clergy. Again, he insisted that the clergy, car- 
 ing only for the good of their flocks, should be content to receive from 
 them whatever might be necessary for the supply of their bodily wants. 
 He reckoned it as a part of their calling to stand up for the rights of 
 the poor. He regarded whatever was given to the clergy merely for 
 the purpose of ministering to their luxury, as so much taken from the 
 poor. From the first, he was a declared enemy of the begging-monks ; 
 as they, on the other hand, were the most zealous and the most influ- 
 ential organs of the Roman hierarchy, which he attacked. They ap- 
 peared to him the chief promoters of superstition, of the externalization 
 of religion into forms and ceremonies, of the immoral tendencies made 
 safe and secure by false reliances. But let us cite his own words. In 
 one of his pieces, intitled " A Short Rule of Life," • we find the fol- 
 lowing address to the ministers of religion : " If thou art a priest, and 
 by name a curate, live thou a holy life. Pass other men in holy prayer, 
 holy desire, and holy speaking ; in counselling, and teaching the truth. 
 Ever keep the commandments of God, and let his gospel and his praises 
 be ever in thy mouth. Let thy open life be thus a true book, in which 
 the soldier and the layman may learn how to serve God and keep his 
 commandments. For the example of a good life, if it be open and con- 
 tinued, striketh rude men much more than open preaching with the 
 word alone." He says afterwards, in conclusion : " Have both meat 
 and drink, and clothing ; but the remnant give truly to the poor : to 
 those who have freely wrought, but who now may not labor, from fee- 
 bleness or sickness ; and thus thou shalt be a true priest, both to God 
 and to man." He was by no means disposed to lower the order of the 
 clergy in the eyes of the people ; on the contrary, he believed that ho 
 honored and exalted it, by exhibiting clearly the true significance of 
 their vocation. Thus in one of his earlier pieces, addressing himself 
 to laymen, he says : " Thy second father is thy spiritual father, who 
 has special care of thy soul, and thus thou shalt revere him. Thou 
 
 took thereof but only this proud worldly rob more the lond for wron<xful privilep;e, 
 
 priest's collector; by process of time this or else leave to do God's will, that men 
 
 hill must be spended ; for he taketh ever shuldcn do without his lead, and buying 
 
 money out of our lond, and sendeth and selling. 
 
 nought agen but God's curse for his sy- * Vaughan, vol. I, p. 312. 
 
 mouy, and accursed Antichrist's clerk to 
 
wicklif's principles op reform. 139 
 
 slialt love him especially, before other men, and obey his teacliing as 
 far as he teaches God's will. And thou shalt help, according to thy 
 power, that he may have a reasonable sustenance when he doth well 
 his office." But while it was generally the case that the objective dig- 
 nity of the priesthood was chiefly held up to view ; while this was re- 
 garded as something inalienable, and represented as an unconditional 
 oliject of reverence for the laity ; Wicklif, on the contrary, made the 
 veneration which should be paid to the clergy, depend on their personal 
 worth. The sense of religion and the conscience of the laity should 
 no longer subserve the private ends of their spiritual guides ; the will 
 of God should be more to them than all else, should be the rule by 
 which they were to judge even of their clergy. But in case the lat- 
 ter fell short of this rule, they were not to exalt themselves, but should 
 seek in the first place, in love and in humility, to correct the clergy 
 by private admonition. In the same treatise he says : " If thy spiritual 
 father fail in his office, by giving evil example, and in ceasing to teach 
 God's law, thou art bound to have great sorrow on that account, and 
 to tell, meekly and charitably, his fault to him, between thee and hira 
 alone." He remonstrated against that worldly spirit of the clergy 
 which led them to engage in business foreign to their calling : " Nei- 
 ther prelates — he says — nor doctors, priests, nor deacons, should 
 hold secular offices ; that is, those of chancery, treasury, privy-seal, 
 and other such secular offices in the exchequer, — more especially 
 while secular men are sufficient to do such offices." In another trea- 
 tise he complains that " prelates and great religious possessioners are 
 80 occupied in heart about worldly lordships and with plans of busi- 
 ness, that no habit of devotion, of praying, of thoughtfulness on heav- 
 enly things, on the sins of their own heart, or on thdse of other men, 
 may be preserved ; neither may they be found studying and preaching 
 of the gospel, nor visiting and comforting of poor men." In a manu- 
 script of "Feigned Contemplative Life," he says :" they resemble 
 bailiffs rather than bishops ; " they were so far sunk in worldliness, 
 that they could not rebuke the worldly lives of others. It serves to 
 characterize Wicklif's tendency as a reformer, to compare it, on the 
 one hand, with the later development of the work of reformation in 
 England and of the reformed church generally, and on the other, with 
 the German reformation by Luther ; and to notice that one of the first 
 works of his as a reformer, was a detailed exposition of the Ten Com- 
 mandments,2 in which he contrasted the immoral life prevalent among 
 all ranks, in his time, with what these commandments require. We 
 should undoubtedly keep in mind what he tells us himself, that he was 
 led to do this by the ignorance which most people betrayed of the deca- 
 logue ; and that it was his design to counteract a tendency which 
 showed greater concern for the opinions of men than the law of God. 
 But at the same time we cannot fail to perceive an inclination to derive 
 the whole body of Christian morality from the ten commandments, an in- 
 
 * Ibid. p. 314. « Exposition of the Decalogue, Vaughan, 
 
 vol. I, p. 319. 
 
140 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 cUnation to adopt in whole the Old Testament form of the law, which 
 shows itself in his applying the law of the Sabbath to the Christian ob- 
 servance of Sunday. In this work he seems still to have clung to the 
 prevailing views respecting the veneration of saints and of images. 
 But in a homily preached two years later, ^ and after his return from the 
 abovementioned cmbassv to Bruires, he condemns the custom of addres- 
 smg prayers to the saints, and he does this in connection with a doc- 
 trine also grounded in the church teaching of his time, that no man 
 can be certain with regard to others, any more than he can with regard 
 to himself, whether he belongs to the number of the elect. No one 
 ought to be worshipped as a saint, unless it be known certainly, by 
 revelation of Holy Scripture, that he is incorporated into the commu- 
 nity of heaven. He calls in doubt, also, the utility of any such kind of 
 worship. It is characteristic of him, that he does not spiritualize the 
 law of the Sabbath into the Christian sense, but applies it simply 2 to 
 the particular observance of one day, although he acknowledges that, 
 considered from the Christian point of view, the observance of the 
 Sabbath is commemorative rather of the resurrection of Christ and the 
 effusion of the Holy Spirit, than the work of creation. He points out, 
 as the duties which distinguish the celebration of this day, devout 
 meditation, the public worship of God, and works of Christian charity. 
 Near the conclusion of this commentary, he rebukes that confidence in 
 outward things whereby man would hush the alarm.s of conscience. 
 *' ^[any think — says he^ — if they give a penny to a pardoner, they 
 shall be forgiven the breaking of all the commandments of God, and 
 therefore they take no heed how they keep them. But I say thee, for 
 certain, though thou have priests and friars to sing for thee, and though 
 thou each day hear many masses, and found chauntries and colleges, 
 and go on prilgrimages all thy life, and give all thy goods to pardoners, 
 all this shall not bring thy soul to heaven. While, if the commandments 
 of God are revered to the end, though neither penny nor half-penny be 
 possessed, there shall be everlasting pardon and the bliss of heaven." 
 If Wicklif, in these and many other instances, where he places 
 the moral element in strong contrast with the one-sided bent of 
 an outward piety, and the superstition that made men feel secure in 
 the service of sin, so expresses himself, as if he seemed to place his 
 whole reliance on good works ; yet we must not forget that he ever 
 presupposes the connection of all this with trust on Jesus as the only 
 Saviour, and with the practical imitation of him which such trust im- 
 pHes. Accordingly, at the end of his commentary he says : "To suf- 
 fer for Christ can be no hard requirement, since he has so greatly suf- 
 fered for us ; " and he commends the contemplation of the sufferings 
 through which apostles, martyrs, and confessors have arrived at their 
 present exaltation, as an inducement to endure the evils of the times 
 with resignation and in a triumphant spirit.^ 
 
 As regards the second matter, the mendicant order of monks, Wick- 
 
 • Ibid. 320 note. ' Vaughan, vol. I, p. 329. 
 
 ' Ibid. 326. ■* Ibid. p. 329. 
 
WICKLIF S PRINCIPLES OF REFORM. 141 
 
 lif, in a treatise ^lirected against them, attacks in particular tlieir exor- 
 bitant influence at the university ; tlie arts by which they drew over 
 the joun*^ men to them. "The friars — says he — drive the youth 
 from the reh<z;ion of Christ, in their several orders, by hypocrisy, false- 
 hood, and theft. For they say, before them, that their particular order 
 is holier than any other, and that they shall take a higher place in the 
 bliss of heaven than others who are not members of it ; and that people 
 of their order would never come to perdition, but would, on the day of 
 judgment, with Chriot judge others. And thus they steal away chil- 
 dren from fathers and mothers, sometimes such as are incapable of or- 
 dination, and sometimes such as, by the commandment of God, are 
 bound to support their elders."' "Hence — says he — they are 
 blasphemers of God, who confidently advise things of a doubtful char- 
 acter, which are, in the Holy Scriptures, neither expressly commanded 
 nor forbidden." He reproaches them with representing their private 
 orders as perfect, as orders founded by Christ. But even on the sup- 
 position that some order, or a particular foundation, were more perfect 
 than ordinary institutions, still they would be wrong in their practice ; 
 for they could not know but it might prove the means of everlasting 
 perdition to the child which they desired so early to bind to vows 
 of their order, if it should be repugnant to his natural disposition ; for 
 it must, as yet, be uncertain for what rank or calling God had destined 
 the child. He disputes the position, that such a way of living was the 
 most perfect imitation of the life of Christ ; for Christ had by no means 
 bred himself to such kind of poverty ; he had not asked everybody 
 without distinction to give him alms, but received from Mary Magda- 
 lene and other pious women and men what was necessary for his sub- 
 sistence. Christ bade his disciples not to take scrip or purse ; these, 
 on the contrary, were used by the begging-monks for the purpose of 
 conveying home, whatever they had begged, to their monasteries. 
 Christ directed his apostles rather to consider who were prepared to 
 receive the message of the gospel ; with such they were to eat and 
 drink, and not to go about from house to house. He adverts to the 
 example of the apostle Paul, who supported himself and his companions 
 with the labor of his own hands ; and sought not to obtain gold and 
 silver, nor apparel, from those whom he instructed ; thus instructing 
 other teachers, by his example, that in times of distress they should do 
 likewise. He says : ' If any would not work, neither should he eat.' 
 He appeals to the treatise of Augustin, De opera Monachoram. He 
 calls it a transgression of Christ's command, when, instead of giving 
 their alms to the poor, the blind, the lame, or the halt, men gave them to 
 a set of hypocrites, who represented themselves as holy and needy,whilst 
 in fact they were robust of body, rich in possessions, dwelt in large 
 houses, owned splendid raiment, made great banquets, and possessed 
 many precious stones and treasures. 
 
 In addition to his duties as university theologian, Wicklif had also 
 taken upon himself the practical work of teaching and laboring among 
 
 * Lewis, p. 5 sq. (new ed. 7 sq.) 
 
142 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 the people whose reli^gious interests he from the first had near at 
 heart. In the year loT5 he became parish priest of Lutterworth in 
 the county of Leicester ; and now hibored alternately as teacher of 
 theology at Oxford, and as preacher and curate at Lutterworth. The 
 zeal with which he discharged his duties as a preacher is proved by 
 the 300 sermons of his still preserved in manuscripts He attached 
 the highest importance to the sermon as a means of supplying the 
 religious wants of the people. Accordingly he regarded the attempt, 
 from higher quarters, to limit and circumscribe the predicatorial office 
 as a thing standing in direct contrariety to the life of Christ and of the 
 apostles.2 Hence he made the sermon a principal thing in the im* 
 provements introduced into public worship ; and endeavored to lead 
 the way in this reform by his own example, as well as to encourage 
 the clergy, who followed him in their course of training, to do the 
 same. While he took special pains to get the hearts of christians 
 interested in works of charity ; in bestowing sympathy and relief on 
 the suffering, whether from age, from sickness or from poverty ; in 
 providing for all their bodily wants, yet he describes it as a still nobler 
 and more important work to look after such as were neglected as to 
 their religious wants, and to provide for the welfare of their souls. 
 " Men — says he — in a sermon on Phihppians iii, who love not the 
 souls, have little love for the bodies of their neighbors ; " and hence 
 the work of christian instruction is described as *' the best service that 
 man may do for his brother." 3 In his ExjDosition of the Ten Com- 
 mandments, the christian man is enjoined " to visit those who are sick, 
 or who are in trouble, especially those whom God hath made needy 
 by age, or by other sickness, as the feeble, the blind, and the lame, 
 who are in poverty. These thou shalt relieve with thy goods, after 
 thy power, and after their need, for thus biddeth the gospel."'* In 
 the letter to " Simple Priests," he declares preaching to be the great 
 duty of their office : " for this Christ enjoined on his disciples more 
 than any other ; by this he conquered the world out of the fiend's 
 hand." In an unpublished tract against the monks 2 — he says — 
 *' The highest service that men can arrive at on earth is to preach the 
 word of God. This service falls peculiarly to priests, and therefore 
 God more straitly demands it of them. Hereby should they pro- 
 duce children to God, and that is the end for which God has wedded 
 the church. Lovely it might be, to have a son that were lord of this 
 world, but fairer much it were to have a son in God, who, as a member 
 of Holy Church, shall ascend to Heaven ! And for this cause Jesus 
 Christ left other works, and occupied himself mostly in preaching ; 
 and thus did his apostles, and for this God loved them." He cites in 
 proof the words of Christ, Luke xi., 28. In a treatise on the Feigned 
 Contemplative Life,^ he describes it as a temptation of the great ad- 
 
 ' Vanghan, vol. II, p. 12. ' Vaiighan.vol. 11, p. 14. 
 
 ' He says : Nam jn-aedic-ationis officium * Ibid. p. 13. 
 est proscriptum. et ofticium spoliandi sub- ' " Contra fratres," ibid. p. 14 sq. 
 ditos est inductum. Dialog, lib. quat. ed. ' "Ufa Feigned Contemplative Life," 
 
 Wkth, Traucof. et Lips. 1753, p. 131. yet unpublished. Ibid. p. 19 
 
WICKLIF ON THE OFFICE OF PREACIIINQ. 143 
 
 versary, when men allow themselves to be drawn off by zeal for the 
 contemplative life, from the office of preaching. *' Before all — says 
 he — we are bound to follow Christ ; yet Christ preached the gospel 
 and charged his disciples to do the same. All the prophets and John 
 the Baptist were constrained by love to forsake the desert, renounce 
 the contemplative life, and to preach." " Ah, Lord — he exclaims — 
 ■what cursed spirit of falsehood moveth priests to close themselves 
 within stone-walls for all their life, since Christ commanded all his 
 apostles and priests to go into all the world, and to preach the gos- 
 pel ? Certainly they are open fools, and do plainly against the gospel ; 
 and if they continue in this error, are accursed of God as perilous 
 deceivers and heretics." ^ In his work against the monks, he replies 
 to those who cited the example of Mary Magdalene as a reason for 
 preferring the contemplative life : '' The example might be pertinent 
 if the priests were women, and if no command opposed to a life of 
 solitude could be found in Scripture." From what was usually said 
 respecting the value of the contemplative life, it might be gathered 
 " that Christ, when in this world, chose the life least suited to it, and 
 that he has obliged all his priests to forsake the better and take the 
 •worse." "Prayer — he remarks — is good; but not so good as 
 preaching ; and, accordingly, in preaching, and also in praying, in the 
 giving of sacraments, the learning of the law of God, and the render- 
 ing of a good example by purity of life, in these should stand the life 
 of a priest." 2 Wicklif was of the opinion, that the preachers con- 
 nected with a particular church were unequal to the task of providing 
 for the wants of the neglected people. The idea of travelling preach- 
 ers originated with him. In vindication of this method, also, he ap- 
 peals to the example of Christ. "The gospel — he says — relates 
 how Jesus went about in the places of the country, both great and 
 small, as in cities and castles, or small towns, and this to teach us to 
 profit generally unto men, and not to forbear to teach to a people, 
 because they are few, and our name may not, in consequence, bo 
 great." ^ This idea of Wicklif, however, as is evident from the earlier 
 history of the church, was not entirely new, but was traditionally con- 
 nected with an idea which had appeared under various forms ever 
 since the close of the twelfth century. 
 
 As other men, possessed of the spirit of reform, had, from the time 
 just mentioned, founded spiritual societies, whose members travelled 
 about clad, as they conceived it, after the manner of the apostles, to 
 look after the religious needs of the people perishing through neglect, 
 so Wicklif founded a societv of this sort, constitutincj; his school in the 
 more limited sense, who called themselves " poor priests," and were 
 subsequently called Lollards, a name similar to that of the Beghards, 
 ■which was also similarly used, to denote persons of a pietistic, un- 
 churchly bent. They went about barefoot, in long robes of a russet 
 color.'* Even Wicklif, as it seems, was not wholly free from the mis- 
 
 ' Ibid. p. 18. ^ Ibid. p. 23. 
 
 ' Ibid. p. 19. * Talaribus indutos vestibus de russeto. 
 
144 HTSTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 take of apprehending literally the duty of following the pattern of the 
 apostolic church ; and from this point of view he might be led to 
 judge too unfavorably of the arrangement by which parish priests were 
 get over particular churches. We should consider, however, that Wick- 
 lif had before his eyes the wicked, arbitrary mode of filling church 
 offices in his time, the influence of bad arts and of simony, and in con- 
 nection therewith the neglect of a great portion of the people, for 
 whose religious needs no provision at all was made by the great num- 
 ber of bad ecclesiastics and monks. There was some just warrant in 
 these circumstances for the idea of constituting the clergy into a semi- 
 nary for domestic missions, so that the members without feeling them- 
 selves confined to any particular spot, might be ready to go to any 
 place where they might be needed, to help the people in their spiritual 
 distress. We see this bent very distinctly manifested in Wicklif's 
 essay on the question " Wiiy poor priests have no benefices." i Speak- 
 ing here of the bad system of patronage, and of the bad management 
 of the benefices, he says : " But if there be any simple man who de- 
 sireth to live well, and to teach truly the law of God, and despise 
 pride and other sins both of prelates and other men, he shall be 
 deemed a hypocrite, a new teacher, a heretic, and not suffered to come 
 to any benefice. If in any little poor place he shall live a poor life, 
 he shall be so persecuted and slandered, that he shall be put out by 
 ■wiles, and imprisoned or burnt. ''2 He states that many great lords, in 
 order to palliate their siuiony, by which the most worthless of men ob- 
 tained high offices, pretended that they did not want any money, as a 
 price for the place, but only a present, as for example, " a kerchief 
 for the lady, or a palfrey, or a tun of wine. And when some lords 
 would present a good man, then some ladies are the means of having 
 a dancer presented, or a tripper on tapits, or a hunter, or a hawker, 
 or a wild player of summer gambols." 3 He denounces the pre- 
 lates and lords, who cooperated in these practices, as the allies of 
 antichrist. They would not suffer Christ's disciples to teach his chil- 
 dren the law of Christ so as to save their souls. And thus they la- 
 bored to banish Christ and his law out of his heritage, i. e. those souls 
 •whom he redeemed, not with corruptible gold and silver, but with the 
 precious blood of his own heart, which he shed on the cross from glow- 
 ing love. *' Now it is to escape such sins — says Wicklif — that some 
 poor priests take no benefices. The poor priests were afraid that if 
 they received such particular appointments they should be withdrawn 
 thereby from better employments, from such as would bring more be- 
 nefit to the church. That was what they had to fear more than any 
 thing else ; for it concerned directly their own persons ; for they had 
 received their whole calling from God to help their brethren, that they 
 
 "Wulsingham hist, an^'l. in Anglica, Nor- dcsireth to live well and teche truly God's 
 
 munnica, llibcrnica, a vetcribus scripia, law, and despise pride and other sins both 
 
 I'rancof. 1603, p. 191. of prelates and other men, he shall ben 
 
 ' Lewis, p. 287, (left out in the new holden an hypocrite, a new teacher, an 
 
 edition): Why poor priests have uo ben- heretick, and not sudered to come to any 
 
 etices. benertce. L. 1. p. 2S7. 
 
 " But if there be any simple man, that •' l\ 289. 
 
THE POOR PRIESTS. 145 
 
 might get to heaven, by their teaching, their prayers, and example. 
 And it seemed to them that they could most easily fulfil this vocation 
 by a general curacy of christian love after the example of Christ; and 
 the apostles. They had never been tied down to one particular place, 
 like a chained dog. By this means they could easily deliver them- 
 selves from danger, and were enabled to give most assistance to their 
 brethren. So now, the poor priests, when persecuted by the clerks of 
 antichrist, could flee without let or hindrance from one city to another, 
 as Christ commanded in the gospel. So they could best be present at 
 once and lend their aid, according to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, 
 at any spot where they were needed. In this way priests and laymen, 
 free from all strife, would be joined together in love.^ Thus some 
 poor priests had associated themselves together, for the purpose of fol- 
 lowing to the utmost the example of Christ and the apostles ; of la- 
 boring where there was the most need, as long as they still retained 
 the vigor of youth, without condemning other priests, who faithfully 
 did their duty. 
 
 Wicklif, by these labors, had gained a small party in Ids favor^ as 
 as well as raised up a considerable number of enemies. He well un- 
 derstood what dangers he must encounter by undertaking the work 
 of a reformer, how easily in these times, a man might, in fighting 
 against the corruptions of the church, be called to suflfer martyrdom. 
 He affirms, that it was an invention of hypocrisy to hold that martyr- 
 dom was no longer possible, because all were christians. He who de- 
 clares the truth which is opposed to their corruption, to prelates — 
 whom he calls satraps — shall not escape their deadly hatred and 
 may therefore die as martyrs. *' And so — he proceeds — we christians 
 need not visit the heathen for the purpose of converting them and 
 dying as martyrs ; but let us but steadfastly preach the law of Christ, 
 even to the imperial prelates, and straightway there shall be a bloom- 
 ing martyrdom, if we hold on in faith and patience." 2 He intimates 
 that many, especially the begging monks, sought his death.^ But 
 death could not terrify him, "for — says he — I know from the 
 evangelical faith, that antichrist with his blows, can only destroy the 
 body ; but Christ, for whose cause I fight, can destroy both soul and 
 body in hell. And I know that he will suffer nothing to be wanting 
 of that which is most needful for his servants, when he has freely 
 surrendered himself to a terrible death, and permitted all the disciples 
 who were dearest to him to endure severe torments for their own be- 
 nefit.4 The begging monks are here mentioned as his fiercest ene- 
 mies, and they stood at the head of the opposite party. In the 
 year 1376, they extracted from his lectures, writings and sermons, 
 nineteen propositions which they marked as heretical, and sent to Rome, 
 that they might there be condemned. These propositions, doubtless, 
 corresponded with the teachings of Wicklif, although when rent from 
 
 * Lewis, p. 297. clamant contra tuam sententiam, et mor- 
 
 ' Dialog, p. 126. tern tuam multipliciter machiuantur. Ibid. 
 
 ' Specialiter cum tanta multitudo fra- p. 189. 
 trum et aliorum vocatorum Chhstianorum * Ibid. p. 196. 
 VOL. V. 13 
 
146 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 the connection in -which they were held forth by him, they sounded 
 more harshly than in their proper place, and were liable to be mis- 
 apprehended. They related to the unlimited power of the pope ; 
 the secular possessions of the church ; the rights of laymen over 
 priests ; the power of the keys ; the conditional validity of excom- 
 munication. We will notice the most remarkable of these proposi- 
 tions. " That no political and temporal rule has been bestowed in 
 perpetuity on the pope and the prelates ; God himself could not, 
 by his almighty power bestow such rule in perpetuity on any man 
 and his posterity."^ " That the perseveringly righteous had not 
 only the right to possess, but also to enjoy all earthly things." * 
 This is the doctrine so much spoken of, that all right of property, and 
 all power are things morally conditioned ; therefore everything here 
 depends on the sul)jective worth of the individual — with sin, is lost 
 the title to possess any thing. Such assertions it had been attempted 
 already to find in many church fathers, and such positions created from 
 this time onward a great sensation, and were particularly made use of for 
 the purpose of throwing suspicion on the cause of Wicklif, and afterwards 
 on that of Huss, in a political point of view. When such propositions were 
 taken literally and singly, they could indeed be so understood, as if 
 all right were thereby reduced to subjective opinion, all civil power 
 and all civil property made dependant on the subjective judgment 
 of each man, and uncertain ; and as if the watch-word were thus 
 given for a general upturning of civil society : but as we shall see, 
 Wicklif, though he uses many blunt and imprudent expressions, guards 
 sufficiently against any such misapprehensions. He is speaking simply 
 of the religious and moral point of view, of that which stood valid 
 in the sight of God ; not of the political and juridical point of view. 
 " That when the church fell into corruption, the secular lords had 
 the right to deprive her of the temporal goods which she abused." 3 
 *' That every prelate, and also the pope, when he is wrong, may be 
 accused, judged, and imprisoned by his subjects, even laymen." -* 
 " That only a just excommunication, in accordance with the law of 
 Christ, and none at variance with that law, was binding." 5 " That an 
 unconditional power to bind and to loose, not even God himself could, 
 by virtue of his omnipotence, bestow on any man." 6 That Christ 
 gave the apostles no power to excommunicate on account of secular 
 things, but rather the contrary ; therefore the pope possessed no such 
 power." " Every priest regularly ordained had power to administer 
 all the sacraments, and also to bind and to loose." 
 
 Pope Gregory XI. thereupon put forth, in the year 1377, against 
 Wicklif, three bulls which he sent to England by a nuncio. One 
 of these was addressed to the university of Oxford, the other to the 
 bishops of Canterbury and London, the third to King Edward III."' 
 He pronounced sentence of condemnation on nineteen of Wicklif 'a 
 
 ' Article 2, Lewis, p. 43 (new ed. p. 46.) ' Art. 15. 
 
 ' Alt. 4. • Art. 14. 
 
 ' Art. 17, p. 45 (newcd. p. 48). ' UaynalJi ann. 1377, No. 4, torn. VII, 
 
 * Art. 19. p. 294. 
 
WICKLTF CONDEMNED BY GREGORY XI. 147 
 
 propositions, imflcr various qualifications. Ho marked several of them 
 as ap^reoini^, thon<:^h not in words, yet in sense, with opinions still ear- 
 lier held fortli by jNIarsilius of Padua and John of Janduno, and con- 
 demned by Pope John XXTI. He directed the king's attention par- 
 ticularly to the fact that several of these propositions not only contra- 
 dicted tlie catliolic fiiith, but also tended to the subversion of civil or- 
 der. He complained that such doctrines had been suffered to spread 
 so A\idely. lie commanded that Wicklif should be thrown into chains 
 and imprisoned ; that he should be allowed to have a hearing in order 
 to know whether he held forth such doctrines, and in what sense ; that 
 his answers should be reported at Rome, and the directions for his fur- 
 ther treatment should be waited for from that court. The pope, how- 
 ever, having doubtless been informed that Wicklif had powerful pa- 
 trons in England, ordered at the same time, that, in case it should be 
 found impracticable to get possession of Wicklif 's person, still the 
 bishops above named, should sit in judgment upon him, and take care 
 that he should be compelled to pay obedience to a citation to Rome. 
 The papal bulls met with no favorable reception in England, except 
 from the bishops. At the university of Oxford,' either sympathy with 
 AVicklif 's cause, or a freer spirit in opposition to papal absolutism, and 
 zeal for the rights of the university, made the authorities for a lono" 
 time doubtful, whether they should receive the papal bull or reject it 
 with scorn.- 
 
 Meantime, the old King Edward had died, and his son Richard II. 
 succeeded him in the government. The first parliament held under his 
 reign w^as animated by a freer spirit of opposition to the papal extor- 
 tions. This tone of feeling would of itself be favorable to Wicklif upon 
 the arrival of the papal bulls. But, in addition to this, the parliament 
 had entered into a sort of alliance with him personally, as the advo- 
 cate of the independent authoritj^ of the state. The parliament de- 
 liberated on the question whether they should not refuse the pope the 
 sums which he demanded, unterrified by any threat of the ban. Wick- 
 lif was invited to give his opinion. He pronounced in favor of the re- 
 fusal, and endeavored to prove the right of it from the teachings of 
 Christ. The parliament decided in conformity with this opinion. The 
 king's brother, John Gaunt Duke of Lancaster, and the marshal Henry 
 Percy, were zealous patrons of Wicklif, and approvers of his freer 
 spirit.3 Moreover, he already had many adherents among the people, 
 consisting partly of such as were susceptible to the Christian element 
 
 • Lewis, p. 46 sq. (new ed. p. 49 sq.) dicti papalis nuntii, diu in pendtilo haere- 
 
 ' Tliat zealous supporter of the papal bant, utruin papalem bullam deberent cum 
 
 party, Walsin<^ham, in his historical work, honore recipere, vcl omnino cum dedecore 
 
 finds nmch fault with the conduct of the refutare. Oxoniense studium generale 
 
 University, whence we may infer what in- quam gravi hipsu asapientiae et scientiae 
 
 terest was taken in Wicklif's doctrines at culmine dccidisti, quod quondam inextri- 
 
 Oxford. Walsino;ham, loc. hiud. p. 201, cabilia atque dubia toti mundo dcclarare 
 
 expresses himself thus : Cujus universita- consuesti. jam ignorantiae nubilo ol)fusca- 
 
 tis moderni procuratores sive rectores tum dubitare non vereris, quae quemlibet 
 
 quantum dejjeneraverint a prudentia seu e laicis christianis dubitare non decet ! 
 
 sapientia antiquorum. per hoc facile con- ^ Lewis, p. 51 sq. (new ed. p. 56 sq.) 
 jici poterit, quod audita causa adventus 
 
148 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 in efforts for reform, and in part of such as were glad to join in the 
 spirit of opposition, or had their pleasure in movements pointing to 
 somethinf]; new.^ Hence no one dared to execute the ])apal bull lite- 
 rally. Yet Sudbury, archbishop of Canterbury, and Courtney, bishop 
 of London, set up a court at Lambeth near Canterbury, and Wickhf was 
 summoned to appear before this tribunal .9 The matter created a great 
 sensation. Wicklif appeared before the tribunal at first accompanied by 
 the Duke of Lancaster and Henry Percy. He was obliged to press his 
 way through a dense crowd, who zealously espoused his cause as that 
 of a martyr for the truth. Percy demanded that Wicklif should be 
 allowed to"^ sit, so that he might defend himself at his ease against the 
 articles of complaint.^ That most zealous opponent of Wicklif, Court- 
 ney, bishop of London, would not allow this to a person accused of her- 
 esy. But the Duke of Lancaster took up the quarrel on the side of 
 Wicklif, and thus an exchange of words passed between him and the 
 bishop. Thus was brought about the dissolution of the first session of 
 the court. A second was opened in June, 1378. The court, particu- 
 larly bishop Courtney, was doubtless inclined to proceed with more 
 severity against Wicklif; but they were held in awe by the power of 
 his patrons.4 The court was obliged to be satisfied, therefore, after 
 Wicklif had given an explanation of the propositions laid to his charge; 
 in doing which he submitted himself to correction by the church 
 in all "cases of detected error ; he protested against the impu- 
 tation of being obstinately bent on defending anything erroneous ; he 
 explained the propositions in a milder sense, guarded them against mis- 
 construction, but without recanting any one of them. He says, in the 
 concluding sentences of his declaration, " Far be it from the church of 
 Christ, that the truth should be condemned because it sounds harshly 
 to sinners or to the ignorant ; for then the entire faith of Scripture 
 would be deserving of condemnation." Of course the zealots for the 
 hierarchical party were much dissatisfied with the issue of the cause, 
 and saw in it nothing but a yielding up of their cause on the part of 
 the court, from motives of fear. 
 
 Wicklifs health had been shattered by his prolonged and severe la- 
 bors and contests. In the year 1379 he was afilicted with a dangerous 
 
 ' "\A';ilsinf;ham. who would naturally, . . quando eas laicorum auribus instillavit, 
 
 from his own point of view, trace the favor sed nude et aperte ut praescril)untur eas 
 
 shown to Wicklif, the heretic, to nothing docuit, captans per taliagratiam laicorum, 
 
 but an im[)ure, worldly interest, says (pa<z;e qui lihenter audiunt, quae perversa sunt, 
 
 191): Quod domini'et magnates terrae praecipue tamen de ecclesia ct personis 
 
 niultique de populo ipsos (Widefitas) in ecclesiasticis, et libentius impelluntur ad 
 
 suis praedicationibus confoverunt. ct fave- damna vel injurias infcrcnda religiosis ct 
 
 runt pracdi(antil)us hos errorcs. Eo nem- clericis, cum ali(}ua opportuuita.s se inges- 
 
 pe maximc, quia potestatem tribucrunt serit, quae omnino extat eis desiderabilis 
 
 laicis suis assert ion i I »us ad aufcrcndum et votiva. P. 208. 
 
 temporalia a veris ecclesiastices et religio- ' Walsingham, p. 205. 
 
 sis. Walsingham's words, showing what ^ Lewis, p. 52, (new ed. 57.) 
 
 a spirit of opposition had been aroused * "Walsingham notices jiarticularly the 
 
 among the laity against ecclesiastics and threats of Sir Lewis Clirt'ord, by which 
 
 monks, are : lioc modo. . . . Wycklcf favo- they were frightened. He had in a pomp 
 
 re ct dilitrentia Londinensium dclusit suos ous manner bid them be silent, 
 examinatores, episcopos derisit, et evasit, 
 
SICKNESS OF WICKLIF. 149 
 
 sickness. On his sick-bed he was visited bj a deputation of four doc- 
 tors of theology from the mendicant orders, and four senators of the 
 city of Oxford,' who came to wish him the restoration of his health. 
 Then they reminded him of the many calumnies which the mendicant 
 friars had suffered from him, and admonished him, in view of death, to 
 retract what he had said against them. Wicklif, who was too weak to 
 rise from his bed, caused himself to be placed erect by his attendant, 
 and collecting his last enermes, exclaimed to the monks : " I shall not 
 die, but live, and ever continue to expose the bad practices of the beg- 
 ging-monks." They left him, covered with confusion. 
 
 The dangers that threatened him, which indeed were still averted 
 by the powerful influence of his friends, and the severe sickness which 
 oppressed him, could not break his courage, nor deter him from the 
 further prosecution of his bold projects of reform. It characterizes him 
 as the forerunner of protestantism, that inasmuch as he considered the 
 Sacred Scriptures the highest and the only source of knowledge with 
 regard to the truths of faith, and beheved it necessary to examine all 
 doctrines and determinations by this standard, he held himself justified 
 in attacking every doctrine that could not be derived therefrom. So 
 he felt it to be his duty to make the Bible, which to the laity was an 
 altogether sealed book, and to the clergy of that age themselves one 
 but little known, accessible to all as the common source of the faith, by 
 translating it into the vernacular tongue. 2 That Wicklif was not the 
 only man filled with this spirit, that the need of a more general knowl- 
 edge of the Bible was at that time deeply felt hy numbers^ is evident 
 from the fact that shortly before Wicklif, John Trevisa, a parish priest, 
 had undertaken a translation of the Scriptures into the English lan- 
 guage. In the year 1380, Wicklif pubhshed his translation, — a work 
 which, as the controversies in which he thereby became involved plain- 
 ly show, required a bold spirit which no danger could appall. Wicklif, 
 it is true, could not produce a Bible in the Enghsh language to be 
 compared with the German one afterwards produced by Luther ; but 
 we should judge of it with reference to the means then standing at his 
 command. He could not go back to the languages of the original, be- 
 ing ignorant of the Hebrew and the Greek ; but he spared no pains, 
 and furnished all that it was possible to furnish with the knowledge and 
 the helps which he possessed. Besides comparing many manuscripts 
 of the Vulgate, he availed himself of the commentaries of Jerome and 
 of Nicholas of Lyra, and whenever these comparisons led him to per- 
 ceive a difference between the Vulgate and the original, he directed 
 attention to the fact by marginal references. He was now attacked 
 from various quarters, because he was introducing among the multi- 
 tude a book reserved exclusively for the use of priests. But he stead- 
 fastly defended his undertaking, and so expressed himself concerning 
 the right and the duty of laymen to draw directly, themselves, from 
 the word of God, as could not fail to provoke against him still more 
 violent attacks. Characteristic of these times is the way in which Henry 
 
 ^ Lewis, p. 64, (new ed. p. 82.) ' Lewis, p. 66, (new ed. p. 83.) 
 
 13' 
 
150 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 Knighton, a contemporary who, in his History of the period, has much 
 to say about Wicklif,i expresses himself on this undertaking. Nothing 
 could furnish a more striking picture of the contrast between the spirit 
 of Wicklif and the hierarchical spirit of the age. We hear almost the 
 same language in this case, on Wicklifs translation of the Bible, as was 
 used afterwards with reference to the version of Luther. Knighton says: 
 *' Master John Wicklif has translated out of Latin into English the gos- 
 pel which Christ delivered to the clergy and doctors of the church, that 
 they might administer to the laity and to weaker persons, according to 
 the state of the times and the wants of men, in proportion to the hunger 
 of their souls and in the way which would be most attractive to them." 
 In these words of Knighton we recognize the prevailing view of the 
 better class of clerixv, who ever refiarded themselves as tutors over the 
 religious consciousness of the laity, and assumed it as certain, that laymen 
 must always be dependant for their religious education on the priests. 
 The latter were to impart to them just so much of the Bible as seemed to 
 them proper and befitting. It was an abuse of the Bible to bestow it 
 all at once upon laymen, who were incapable of understanding it, and 
 hence could only be led by it into error. Knighton proceeds : " Thus 
 was the gospel by him laid more open to the laity, and to women who 
 could read, than it had formerly been to the most learned of the clergy ; 
 and in this way the gospel pearl is cast abroad, and trodden under foot 
 of swine." ^ He accuses Wicklif, so far as he attempted to restore the 
 true gospel, of a design to substitute in place of the ancient one a 
 new everlasting gospel,^ after the manner of those sects, against which 
 WiUiam of St. Amour had written.'* This crime, he says, was indeed 
 laid to the charge of those Franciscans, but it is far more applicable to 
 the Lollards, who have rendered the gospel into our mother tongue. 
 In defence of his translation, Wicklif said : " When so many versions 
 of the Bible have been- made, since the beginning of the faith, for the 
 advantage of the Latins, it might surely be allowed to one poor crea- 
 ture of God to convert it into English, for the benefit of Englishmen. 
 He appeals to the examples of Bede and of Alfred. Moreover French- 
 men, Bohemians, and Britons had translated the Bible and other books 
 of devotion into their respective languages. " I cannot see — he says 
 — why Englishmen should not have the same in their language, unless 
 it be through the unfaithfulness and negligence of the clergy, or be 
 cause our people are not worthy of so great a blessing and gift of God, 
 in punishment for their ancient sins." To those who saw something he- 
 retical in the fact that the Bible was translated into English, he replies: 
 " They would condemn the Holy Ghost, who taught the apostles to 
 speak in divers tongues. He finds fault with the clergy for withholding 
 those keys of knowledge, which had been given to them, from the laity. 
 He styles those persons heretics who affirmed that people of the world 
 
 ' Chronica de eventibus An^liae in pelium Christi in aliud evanf^elium, qnod 
 
 Histor. anglic. scriptor. antiq., Lond. 1652, dicunt fore pcrfectius et melius et dif^nius, 
 
 torn. II. quod appellant evanpfcliura aeternura sive 
 
 ' Il»id. p. 2644. evanpelium spiritus sancti. 
 
 ' Aliqui laborant ad mutandum evan- * Vid. vol. IV of this work, p. 283. 
 
wicklif's translation of tue bible. 151 
 
 and lords had no need of knowini^ the law of Christ, but it was suffi- 
 cient for them to know what the priests imparted to them orally.' 
 " For Holy Scripture is the faith of the church, and the more familiar 
 they become with them, in a ri^^ht believini^ sense, the better." lie 
 censures the clergy for taking the liberty to withhold many things con- 
 tained in the Scriptures, which were against their own interest, from 
 the laity ; as, for example, whatever related to tlie obligation of the 
 clergy to follow Christ in poverty and humility. All laws and doctrines 
 of the prelates were to be received only so fiir as they were founded 
 on the sacred Scriptures. As all believers must stand before the judg- 
 ment seat of Christ to give account of the talents committed to them, 
 so all should rightly know these talents and their use, in order that they 
 may know how to render an account of them ; for then no answer 
 "which must be given through a prelate or a steward could be of any 
 avail, but each must answer in his own person. lie found it necessary 
 to show that the New Testament was intelligible to all laymen who 
 only did what in them lay to attain to the understanding of it, in 
 refutation of the opinion that a peculiar sort of preparation, which was 
 possible only to the order of priests, was requisite for that purpose. 2 
 He extended this universal intelhi^ibleness of the New Testament to all 
 things the knowledge of which was necessary to salvation. The religious 
 and moral state of recipiency, the striving after righteousness, he main- 
 tained to be the most important qualification. Whoever, said he, ob- 
 serves gentleness and love, he possesses the true understanding of the 
 Holy Scriptures. He styles it a heresy to affirm that the gospel, with 
 its truth and freedom, did not suffice for the salvation of a Christian, 
 without the ordinances and ceremonies of sinful and ignorant men. 
 For the rest, it is worthy of notice that Wicklif allowed himself to be 
 carried, by his reverence for the Scriptures and his earnest endeavors 
 to maintain their sufficiency for all purposes, beyond the measure of 
 propriety, to fail of keeping sufficiently distinct from each other the 
 provinces of religious and of worldly knowledge, arrti to seek for the 
 resolution of questions, which had no relation whatever to the religious 
 needs and salvation of men, in the Sacred Scriptures.^ 
 
 In the midst of these contests, Wicklif ventured to attack the doc- 
 trine of the church on a point most vitally connected with the interest 
 of the church party — an attack, which, in these times, must have 
 exposed him to the greatest peril. He stood forth, in the year 1381, 
 as an opponent of the doctrine of transubstantiation. This was a 
 necessary consequence of the relation, in which the whole bent of his 
 
 * Lewis, p. 68, (new ed. p. 86.) translated into English, for this had often 
 
 ' Wicklif himself relates, that at the proved an occasion of falling into here- 
 
 University of Oxford it had been ordered, sies. It was not politic, that every man 
 
 that priests and parsons should not read should, whenever or wherever he pleased, 
 
 the Holy Scriptures until they had spent devote himself to the earnest study of the 
 
 there nirie or ten years. But it is well to Bible. Lewis, p. 71, (new ed. p. 88.) 
 
 observe, as characterizing the times, what •* Nulla quidem est subtilitas in gram- 
 
 the Franciscan Butler wrote twelve years matica vel logica vel alia scientia nomi- 
 
 later. The prelates should not tolerate it, nanda, quin sit excellentius in scriptura. 
 
 that every man according to his inclina- Dialog, p. 23 
 tion should be allowed to read the Bible 
 
152 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTHIXE. 
 
 own mind stood to that spirit, from which the doctrine of transubstan- 
 tiation had proceeded, and which had made it triumphant. He pub- 
 lished, in his lectures of the year 1381, twelve conclusions against this 
 doctrine.' 
 
 We will, in the first place, consider more minutely his way of think- 
 ing on this subject. He attacked the doctrine of transubstantiation, 
 and of the accidentia sine siibjecto^ on rational and on exegetical 
 grounds. As regards the latter, he appealed to the words of institu- 
 tion, and held that the pronoun, " This," supposed the actual presence 
 of the object referred to. The logical refutation connected itself with 
 his realism, by which he was led to assume a oneness of thought 
 and being, a harmony of correspondence between the laws of thought 
 and the laws of creation. Hence, looking at the matter from this 
 point of view, the accidentia sine suhjecto appeared to him a thing 
 inconceivable and impossible, involving a self-contradiction. In op- 
 posing the advocates of this doctrine, he says : " They pretend that 
 they annihilate in an instant the world created by God ,2 because they 
 destroy the primal matter which God decreed should be imperishable ; 
 and yet they can make no new thing in this world, save that they 
 fabricate unheard of miracles, — things, which beyond any doubt would 
 be impossible with God, (as God's almighty power has no relation to 
 things impossible in themselves) .3 And as they pretend, they make a 
 new world. But we all suppose that God does nothing without a 
 sufficient reason, that he does not destroy a nature which is incapable 
 of sin, that he does not confound the ideas implanted in us by nature,^ 
 unless some greater advantage or some better reason exists for so 
 doing." "What, then, could induce the Lord Jesus Christ — says he 
 — so to take away from his worshippers the judgment of reason, when 
 not a particle of good was to accrue from so doing ; for it can not be 
 proved by reason or by Scripture that such an illusion is necessary 
 for men as an accidens sine subjecto, when bread and wine remaining 
 would in a more suitable way represent the body of Christ. And there 
 may be body and blood of Christ as well in each point of such a sub- 
 stance, as in any point of such a monstrous accident ; and still greater 
 reverence to God would be produced thereby." ^ He affirms that it was 
 inconirruous with Christ's nature to work a miracle of annihilation : it 
 was contrary to the whole analogy of his miraculous works during his 
 life on earth. Let us cite the characteristic words of Wickclif him- 
 self: " They say, in the consecration of the host, they consecrate 
 bread and wine into nothing. But Christ, though he was called by 
 an indolent servant a hard master, never cursed in so hard a style 
 anything that can be named ; for, when he cursed the fig-tree, it still 
 continued to exist in its substance ; for, far was it from Christ, either 
 
 ' Lewis, p. 77, (new cd. p. 91.) * Page 193 : Omnes admittimus, quod 
 
 * Ponunt enim, quod mundum, quern dcus nihil potest fuccre nisi probabili ra- 
 
 deus crearat, statimdcstruunt. Dialog, p. tione. nee destruit naturam impcccabilem, 
 
 191. nee confundit notitiam naturaliter nobis 
 
 ' Vid. Wicklifs doctrine of God's om- datam. 
 
 nipotence. * Page 194. 
 
WICKLIF AGAINST THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 153 
 
 on account of sin or an emblem of sin,' to destroy utterly Lis own 
 creation, and no creature can do anythin*!;, unless the agency of the 
 Creator precedes. It is manifest thri, although they bless the bread, 
 as they saj^ to nothing, 3^et Christ preserves it, because it is his crea- 
 tion." 2 " The author of these falsehoods — says he — is not He who 
 spake and it stood fast, but rather that lying spirit, who spake, and it 
 ceased to be." When the determinations of the Latoran council under 
 Innocent III. were cited as testimony in fav^or of the doctrine of 
 Transubstantiation, he replied : Although Innocent may have taught 
 such an insane fiction as the monks affirm, still this can make out 
 nothing against the truth which is founded on the gospel ; for it is 
 from this source all truth must be derived, and especially that truth 
 which relates to our faith. ^ He alludes to the fact that he had sent 
 to the satraps (the prelates) three theses : First, if by the power of 
 those sacramental words, an " accident without a subject " was posited 
 in the sacrament of the altar, then the sacrament itself also was an 
 accident ; secondly, there had never, from the beginning, been a more 
 monstrous heresy than this ; thirdly, this sacrament was in a natural 
 way true bread, and truly the body of Christ.-* 
 
 With regard to Wicklif 's own view of the Lord's Supper, it may be 
 remarked, that he contended against every mode of a bodily presence 
 of Christ, every mode of conceiving a strict and proper connection of 
 body and blood with the bread and wine. He contended against that 
 earlier view set forth by John of Paris, of a so-called impanation, the 
 view that in virtue of a union of the body and blood of Christ with the 
 bread and wine like the union of the two natures in Christ, the predi- 
 cates of the one might be transferred over to the other. He affirmed 
 that bread and wine are called body and blood of Christ only in a 
 symbolical sense, as in general one thing may, in an improper sense, 
 be called by the name of another. But he regarded it as being not 
 merely a representative, but also an active symbol for behevers ; that 
 the symbols were actually that which they represented in a certain 
 relation, hahitudinaliter, that is, insomuch that believers, who partook 
 of the holy supper with true devotion, were thereby placed in a real 
 union with Christ. He endeavored to prove this by comparing the 
 language with other similar modes of expression in the Scriptures. 
 " Homely examples — he says — may be adduced in illustration. It 
 is not required, but contradicts the truth, to say that a man, by 
 becoming a lord or a prelate of the church, ceases to be the same 
 person, when he continues to be the same, although, in a certain sense, 
 
 * Page 198: Propter peccatum vel figu- vit in ista dementia, ut fratres sibi impo- 
 
 ram peccatj. By the latter phrase he nunt; scio tamen ex fide Christi, quod 
 
 doubtless intended to intimate that the quicquid in materia ista definierit, non 
 
 barreness of the fig tree was emblematical debet acceptari a fidelibus, nisi de quanto 
 
 of the moral barrenness of the Jewish in lege evangelica est fundatum, cum cer- 
 
 people. tus sum ex eadem fide, quod in ista lege 
 
 2 Patet, ut consonat, quod licet ipsi be- omnis Veritas et specialiter Veritas fidei 
 
 nedicant panem, ut false dicunt, in nihi- secundum mensuram, quae magis congru- 
 
 lum, tamen Christus, cum sit sua fabrica, it, continetur. Dial. p. 196. 
 
 ipsum servat. * Ibid. p. 197. 
 
 ' Et esto, quod Innocentius III. devia- 
 
154 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 more exalted substance. So we should believe that the bread, through 
 the power of the sacramental words in virtue of the consecration by 
 the high priest, becomes truly Christ's body. The substance of the 
 bread is not thereby destroyed but exalted to a nobler substance.' 
 Do we really believe that John the Baptist, when he was by the power 
 of Christ's word made Ehas, ceased thereby to be John, or anything 
 that he in substance was before ? In like manner, it is not required 
 to say that the bread, although it began to be the body of Christ by 
 the power of his words, therefore ceased to be bread." Both might 
 so subsist together, that Christ might call John EHas, and yet John 
 might say he was not Elias. " For the one means — says he — that 
 John is Elias in a figurative sense, and the other, that he is not Elias 
 in person." After the same analogy the bread, if one speaks in the 
 proper sense, is not, and yet, in the symbolic sense, it is the body of 
 Christ ; it is only necessary to distinguish the different senses in which 
 a thing is affirmed or denied.- He cites in proof the case that Christ, 
 with a certain reference, is called by the apostle Paul, 1 Cor. x, a 
 rock ; and that, according to the 41st chapter of Genesis, the seven 
 ears of corn and the seven fat kine were seven fruitful years, — not 
 that they represented, but that they were these years.^ 
 
 He observes that there are three modes of being, that may be 
 attributed to the body of Christ, — his being in Heaven, in the world 
 generally, and in the holy supper. We should not represent the 
 matter as if that which is represented by something else in a certain 
 relation, hahUudlnaliter, came to it by some motion in space, or as 
 if an actual change took place by some process taking place in the 
 thing represented. We should not conceive that the body of Christ 
 descends to the host, which is consecrated in a particular church ; 
 but it remains above, fixed and unmoved, in Heaven. Hence that 
 body is present in the host spiritually, not diraensionally, as in Heaven. 
 Christ is s|)iritually present, as man, in every part of the world. Yet, 
 in the consecrated host, Christ is present in a far different manner, 
 since he is, habitudinaliter, the very host itself. And in relation to 
 spiritual being and potential being he is still, again, differently present 
 in every part of the same. And thus it is evident, that in a twofold 
 respect the body of Christ is in the place of the consecrated host.4 
 
 Thus it may be explained, how Wicklif, in an English confession, 
 could honestly say : " I acknowledge that the sacrament of the altar 
 is verily God's body in the form of bread ; but it is God's body after 
 a different manner than that body is in heaven."^ We see how in 
 Wicklif, the denying of the corporeal presence of Christ in the euchar- 
 ist, under the supposition of a merely spiritual presence, is connected 
 with too sensuous a representation of heaven, and of the nature of the 
 
 ' Cum naturapanis non ex hinc destru- pus Chrisi, et idem sacramentum est figu- 
 
 itur, sed in digniorem substantiam cxalta- raliter corpus Christi. Ibid, 
 tur.' P. 190. ^ n>i'i- P- 200. 
 
 * Et conformiter non contradicunt, sed * Iltid. p. 204. 
 aequivocant (lui conct'dunt, quod hoc sac- * Lewis, p. 285, (new ed. p. 335.) 
 ramentum non est, supple, naturaliter cor- 
 
wicklif's doctrine of the lord's supper. 155 
 
 glorified body of Christ, when he says : " In heaven is his f(Dot in the 
 form of flesh and blood ; but in the sacrament is God's body, by a 
 miracle of God, in the form of bread." How it is that although Christ 
 is not corporeally present, yet faith must fasten only on him, he illus- 
 trates as follows : As one thinks not of the material of which a statue 
 is made, whether it be made of oak or of ash, and fixes his thoughts 
 only on that of which it is the figure, so and still more, one should be 
 far from thinking of the species of bread, but he should think only on 
 Christ, and with all the purity, all the devotion and all the love, which 
 God pleased to give him, reverence Christ ; and then he receives God 
 spiritually to more effect than the priest who chants the mass with less 
 charity." ^ 
 
 Wicklif says himself, in a passage of his Trialogue, that he was cer- 
 tain of the negatives, viz., that the doctrine of transubstantiation and 
 the doctrine of the accldentibus sine subjecto, could not be true ; more 
 uncertain of the positive side, how it was necessary to conceive the re- 
 lation of the consecrated bread and wine to the body and blood of 
 Christ. Hence may be explained how it should happen that he does 
 not always express himself exactly alike on this doctrine. To contend 
 against the sensuous tendency to set forth the spiritual union with 
 Christ as the principal thing, he ever regarded as the point of great- 
 est importance, and this predominant interest in favor of the spiritual 
 mode of apprehension, may in fact have led him into many false inter- 
 pretations. Remarkable is the way in which he expresses himself on 
 this subject, in an English work of his, entitled the Wickett (door 
 to the Christian life). 2 He here affirms scripture does not say, that 
 Christ at the institution blessed the bread and wine, but it seems on 
 the contrary, that he blessed his disciples, whom he had appointed to 
 be witnesses of his life-giving sufferings, and in them he left his bless- 
 ed word, which is the bread of life ; as it is written, that man shall 
 not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the 
 mouth of God. And so Christ had called himself the bread of life 
 that came down from heaven, and Christ, in the gospel of Matthew (he 
 means no doubt the gospel of John), often says, the words which I 
 speak to you are spirit and life. Hence it seems rather that he blessed 
 his disciples, than the bread and wine ; for in them was the bread of 
 life left, much more than in the material bread and wine.3 For the 
 material bread is a perishable thing, Matth. 15 : 17 ; for the 
 blessing of Christ preserved his apostles spiritually and bodily at 
 
 * Lewis, p. 285, (new ed. p. 335): Asa profites nouth to soule. but in alsmykul 
 
 man leeves for to thenk the kinde of an as the soule is fedde with charity, 
 yraage whether it be of oke or of ashe, and ' Wycklyffes Wycket, whyoh he made 
 
 settys his thought in him in whom is the in King Richard's days the second, pub- 
 
 ymage : so myche more schuld a man leve lished at Nuremberg, 1546, then afterwards 
 
 tho thenk on the kynde of brede, but re, rinted at the University of Oxford, 
 
 thenk upon Christ ; and with alle cleness, 1828, which edition lies here before us. 
 alle devotion, and alle charitye that God ^ Wycket, p. 15: Therfore it semeth 
 
 wolde gif him worschippe he Crist, and more that he blessed his disciples, and also 
 
 then he receives God ghostly more meed- his apostles, in whom the bread of lyfe 
 
 fully than the prist that syngus the masse was lefte more then in raateriall breade. 
 in less charity. For the bodely etyng ne 
 
156 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 the same time ; "where he cites Christ's promise that no one of his 
 disciples should be lost except Judas. Christ says not this bread is 
 my body, or, that the bread should be given for the life of the -world, — 
 where it apfjears that Wicklif did not refer the pronoun '' This " to 
 the bread, but as Carlstadt afterwards seems to have done, to Christ's 
 body.^ And in proof of the assertion that all depends here upon the 
 spirit, not upon the flesh, he cites the words of Christ in John 6 : 63 ; 
 and next the words in John 12 : 24 ; *' From these words — he adds 
 — we may perceive that Christ according to the flesh must die, and 
 that in his death is given the fruit of eternal life for all who believe 
 in him. 
 
 "Wicklif even declares with great vehemence, his opposition to that 
 doctrine of *' the accidents without a subject," which to him seemed 
 Eo much at variance with the bible and with reason. He represents 
 it as one of Satan's most cunning manoeuvres, to succeed in persuading 
 men to believe this monstrous doctrine. He thus expresses himself 
 on the subject in his Trialogue.2 The cunning craft of Satan strove 
 a long time to work up this delusion, to mislead the church into this 
 heresy." He represents Satan as saying: "If by my representa- 
 tive the antichrist, I can so far lead astray the faithful of the church, 
 that they shall hold this sacrament to be no longer bread, but an 
 abominable accident, I shall by that very thing lead them afterwards 
 to believe whatever I will." He means that by the same analogy, it 
 might be said to the communities, " In whatever vices a prelate may 
 live, yet this should never be believed of him by the people his sub- 
 jects. He would say that, by this analogy, those dignities of the 
 clergy which are to be reverenced by laymen, may be retained in spite 
 of all their crimes, if every thing was to be considered as aa accident 
 without a subject." 
 
 He denominates the adoration of the host a species of idolatry. 
 When it was objected, that this adoration was not paid to the host but 
 to Christ, he replied : " The same may be said of any creature, which, 
 according to this doctrine should therefore be adored ; for it is cer- 
 tain, that in every creature is the trinity, and that is something far 
 more perfect than the body of Christ.3 Yet Wicklif does not reject 
 altogether the custom of adoration in this regard, since he says : 
 " Still we adore this host, according to the faith of scripture, in a way 
 more safely warranted, and so also the cross of our Lord, or other 
 images made by men." 
 
 Wicklif went to such a length in his altogether too dogmatical zeal 
 as to regard this doctrine both as an invention of Satan and also as 
 an error incompatible with the existence of saving faith : and believed 
 it necessary to su|)pose that those advocates of this doctrine, whom he 
 
 ' And often the scripture saith, that Jesu ' Lib. IV, p. 201. 
 toke Uieude and brake it ami j^ave it to •' Quia certurn est, quod in qualibet 
 
 his disciples and sayd, take ye eat ye, this creatura est triniias increata, et ilia est 
 
 is my bodye that shalbe jijeven tbr you. lon^re perfectior quam est corpus ChristL 
 
 But he sayd not this bread is my body, or 1*. 202. 
 that tJie brede shuid be geven for the lyfe 
 of the world. 
 
"wicklif's doctrine of the lord's supper. 157 
 
 •would not willingly cut off from salvation, as for example, Robert, bish- 
 op of Lincoln, venerated by him as a witness for tlic truth, must, be- 
 fore their departure, have come to the knowledge of this heresy, and 
 repented of it.' We recognize here that one-sided dogmatic tendency 
 of protestantism, -which is hiclined to lay an undue stress on formal 
 conceptions. But at the same time we should carefully keep in mind, 
 that before men were in a condition to understand the real historical 
 process of development of the religious life and its relation to doctrine, 
 they must have been quite incapable of understanding the relative ne- 
 cessity of certain doctrinal modes of expression for certain times, in a 
 certain spiritual atmosphere, though such modes of expression objec- 
 tively considered, may be incorrect. 
 
 Having thus thrown a glance at Wicklif 's doctrine of the Lord's 
 supper, we now return back to the history. In the year 1381, then, 
 Wickhf put forth the following theses on the Lord's supper : " The 
 right faith of a Christian is this, that this commendable sacrament is 
 bread and body of Christ, as Christ is true God and true man ; and 
 this faith is founded on Christ's own words in the gospels." He adverts 
 to the testimony of the church fathers, and characterizes this faith as 
 perfectly consonant with reason. He adduces the proofs in confirma- 
 tion of it from the epistles of St. Paul. He calls upon the secular 
 lords to defend this faith, as they were bound to do on peril of their 
 salvation. 
 
 The case, however, was quite different with Wicklif 's attack on the 
 doctrine of transubstantiation, from what it had been with his previous 
 contests. When he attacked the tyranny and the vices of the clergy, 
 of the mendicants, he could reckon on a host of allies, even such as 
 did not agree with him in his dogmatic convictions. But here the 
 question related to the weightiest doctrines of the church, the oppo- 
 nents of which had long since been condemned as heretics. The 
 chancellor of the university of Oxford called together twelve doctors, 
 and with their concurrence, published a solemn judgment, declaring 
 the theses put forth by Wicklif on the doctrine of transubstantiation to 
 be heretical ; and the preaching of these views were forbidden on pe- 
 nalty of imprisonment and the infliction of the ban. Wicklif, how- 
 ever, did not allow himself to be disturbed by this proceeding, but 
 boldly told the chancellor that neither he nor any other member of 
 his council, would be able to point out anything heretical in him. 
 Then following out his principles respecting the relation of the church 
 to the state, he made his appeal to the king. 
 
 Meanwhile, through the spread of Wicklif 's principles, and owing 
 to the impulse he had communicated and the influence of his party, 
 which extended in various" ways through the different ranks of society, 
 to the very lowest, various foreign, secular, and political elements en- 
 tered into the fermentation that had been produced, which threatened 
 a catastrophe. There were appearances similar to those which started 
 
 * Multos autem suppono seductos fuisse suppono de domino Lincolniensi. P. 198. 
 hac haeresi, qui tiaaiiter poenilebaut, ut . 
 
 VOL. V. 14 
 
158 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 up amidst the Donatist movements in North Africa, and in the peasant 
 war connected ^vith the German reformation. These movements seem 
 to have spmng up originally independent of Wicklif 's influence, direct 
 or indirect, and to have been owing to other causes. The manifold 
 oppressions of the country people called forth powerful reactions, and 
 a little spark might grow into a large fire. The spirit that revolted 
 against oppression brought on a disposition to resist all regular author- 
 ity, and to reduce everything to a level. These movements do not 
 seem even to have stood so closely connected with the reformatory 
 tendency proceeding from Wicklif as the disturbances of the later 
 peasant war in Germany stood with the ideas diffused by Luther, and 
 misapprehended by some of the people. Still, the reformatory ele- 
 ments set in motion by Wickclif, might enter into combination with 
 reformatory movements of a quite another character, relating purely to 
 political matters ; and the attacks on the power and rule of a corrupt 
 clergy called forth by Wicklif," might present somewhat the appear- 
 ance of a common cause. Add to this, that men of a violent and 
 fanatical spirit of reform placed themselves, at this time — like those 
 enthusiasts attacked by Luther in his later days, the leaders of the 
 people in the peasant war, — at the head of the excited people, or 
 espoused their cause with visionary expectations. We cannot say that 
 such men had been first roused by the impulse which proceeded from 
 Wicklif, that they had first received and afterwards further developed 
 the seeds which he scattered abroad. A man from whom some great 
 movement proceeds seldom stands alone. Generally there is some 
 common element in the spiritual atmosphere, which brings such men 
 upon the public stage, though minds of a kindred bent show themselves 
 sometimes pure, sometimes the reverse ; in some cases, full of good 
 sense ; in others, extravagant and fanatical. So it seems to have 
 been with the reformatory movements and elements of rebellion against 
 the hierarchy which appeared in England at the present time. There 
 was a priest, John Balle, chaplain to the archbishop of Canterbury, 
 not from Wicklif 's school, nor first aroused by Wickhf 's influence ; for, 
 before the latter came upon the public stage, this person had already 
 created a sensation by his preaching. i This man seems not to have 
 started, like Wicklif, from a determinate dogmatic tendency opposed 
 to the dominant church system, but to have embarked in his under- 
 takings merely as a practical reformer. Perhaps he appeared first as 
 one of the preachers of repentance in those times, and vigorously 
 attacked the reigning vices and immoralities of the day, understood 
 how to work on the passions of the people, had many followers, and 
 was thus carried along from one step to another. He inveighed espe- 
 cially against the vices prevailing among the clergy and the nobil- 
 ity. This pleased the people. 2 He declaimed against the superfluity 
 of wealth among the clergy, spoke of their growing rich at the peo- 
 
 ' Knighton says concerning Wicklifs opinionibus pracparavit. Hist. angl. script, 
 
 relations with him : Hie hahuit praecurso- torn. II, p. 2644. 
 
 rem Johannem Balle, veliiti Christus Jo- ' Knighton, his violent opponent, sayg 
 
 hannem baptistam, qui vias suas iu talibus of him : Qui praedicator famosissimus ha- 
 
INSURRECTION AMONG THE PEASANTRY. 159 
 
 pie's cost. Tythes — he said — ought not to be paid to parsons, when 
 those that paid them were poorer than the parsons. Neither ought 
 tythes or oblations to be paid, when it was evident that the laity led 
 better lives than the parson.^ He seems to have been zealous against 
 the unchastity of the clergy, and probably remonstrated as the repre- 
 sentatives of the Ilildebrandian reformatory spirit had formerly done, 
 against the practice of allowing illegitimate sons of clergymen to obtain 
 spiritual promotion.- In all this, as appears evident from what has 
 been said, he presented numerous points of contact with Wicklif, whi«ih, 
 however, is no proof of any farther relationship of spirit, or connection 
 between the two men. Neither is it certain that John Balle, at any 
 later period, embraced Wicklif 's doctrines. For when his opponents, 
 w^ho were also the fierce opponents of Wicklif, say that he dissemi- 
 nated Wicklif's doctrines among the people,^ still this amounts to no 
 proof that he did so. After having thus wielded an influence over the 
 people for a considerable time, he was finally arrested, and, to their 
 great chagrin, cast into prison at Canterbury. Meanwhile insurrec- 
 tion spread far and wide among the populace. The possessions of the 
 archbishop were attacked. And it is a noticeable fact, though one 
 that has often occurred at other times, that men impelled by a wild 
 spirit of fanaticism, men, who in other respects indulged themselves in 
 every species of abomination, wishing to appear only as champions for 
 justice and liberty, would allow of no theft, no robbery to gratify 
 private avarice. These mobs had attacked a castle belonging to the 
 duke of Lancaster. He was particularly unpopular with them. And 
 yet we have seen that this duke was Wicklif's ancient patron — which 
 shows, again, that there could not have been any connection between 
 these two different movements. On this occasion one of the mob stole 
 a beautiful vessel of silver, which he wished to retain for himself; but 
 his companions tossed him and the vase into the flames, crying : We 
 are not thieves and robbers, but zealots for truth and justice ! 4 By 
 this insurrectionary mob Balle was liberated from his dungeon and, 
 received with enthusiasm as a martyr. He stood up as a preacher 
 before an audience of thousands, and added fuel to the flame. The 
 multitude wanted to make him their archbishop and chancellor. One 
 sentence in a sermon of his which he preached before a mob composed 
 of two hundred thousand people, characterizes the man : " When 
 Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman ? " ^ He 
 then went on to prove that by nature all were created equal ; bondage 
 
 bebatur apud lai'cos, qui per plura retroac- are not to be taken in so literal a sense, 
 
 ta tetnpora verbum dei insipienter sparse- Perhaps they state his own conclusion 
 
 rat, lollium cum tritico imniisceudo, la'icis from a fact, rather than the fact as it really 
 
 nimis placens. P. 2634. When this op- was. His words are : Docuit etiam nemi- 
 
 ponent says of him, that he mixed tares nem aptum regno dei, qui non in matri- 
 
 with the good fruit in his sermons, it would monio natus fuisset. 
 
 seem that even his enemy must find ^ As Walsingham says : Docuit et per- 
 
 something to commend in him, which may versa dogmata pertidi Johannis Wicklef 
 refer to his practical exhortations. •* Knighton, p. 2635. 
 
 ' Walsingham, p. 275. * Walsingham, p. 275 : Wahn Adam 
 
 ' That is, if we may gather this from dalfe and Eve span, who was than a gen- 
 
 the words of Walsingham, which, coming tleman 1 
 from the lips of so violent an antagonist, 
 
160 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 had been introduced only by sinful men, subjugating others, in opposi- 
 tion to God's will ; for, if it had pleased God to create serfs, he would 
 have determined, in the beginning of the world, who should be a serf 
 and who a freeman. They should consider, then, he said to the as- 
 sembled crowd, that the time had now come, when, casting off the 
 yoke of servitude, they could enjoy the long desired liberty. There- 
 fore he exhorted them to behave as men of understanding. And from 
 love to the Father of the house, who purges the field from tares, they 
 should feel bound also to do the same now ; first, putting to death the 
 lords and nobles of the realm, then the judges and jurists, next, all 
 whom they knew would in any other way do mischief to the common- 
 wealth. Then, and not till then, would they secure to themselves 
 peace and freedom for the future, when there was equal liberty, dig- 
 nity and authority among them all. John Balle afterwards fell a 
 victim to his fanaticism : he was taken prisoner and executed as a 
 rebel. This insurrection of the peasantry, which led to great havoc 
 and destruction, was finally put down by force. Now, although, as is 
 evident, all this was a thing quite foreign from the spirit of Wicklif, 
 yet it was eagerly seized upon afterwards by his enemies, as a pretext 
 for connecting the aims and intentions of the so-called Lollards, with 
 the object proposed by those disturbances. Many of Wicklif 's disci- 
 ples among the clergy and the knights, disciples among the clergy 
 who did not conduct their labors with the prudence of their master, 
 and who manifested in their sermons too violent a zeal for reform, may 
 have contributed to this result. 
 
 AVicklif himself meddled too much with reform beginning from with- 
 out, — a spirit which passed over, also, to the party he founded. And 
 this circumstance would contribute, still more, to place his cause in a 
 false light. He presented to the parliament, a paper, in which he 
 proposed that the king and the realm should obey prelates only so far 
 as, according to the teaching of Scripture, such obedience belonged tg 
 the obedience of Christ ; because otherwise Christ must obey Anti- 
 christ. For there was no neutral ground between Christ and Antichrist. 
 All obedience should be paid solely to Christ ; and any act of obedience 
 not paid to him, must therefore be paid to Antichrist. He cites, in 
 proof, Christ's words : "He that is not for me is against me." That 
 the money of the kingdom should be sent neither to the court of Rome, 
 nor to Avignon, nor to any other foreign power, unless it were proved 
 that men are bound to do so from Holy Scripture. That neither a car- 
 dinal, nor any other man, had a right to enjoy the fruits of an English 
 church, unless he duly resided there, or was lawfully employed in prose- 
 cuting some affair of the realm, which had been approved by the nobles. 
 For he would else not enter in through Christ, but as a disciple of Anti- 
 christ ; and by human ordinances he would plunder the kingdom, like 
 a robber, among the poor under his power, without returning any equiv- 
 alent for the money obtained. That the king and the realm should be 
 bound to extirpate the traitors of the realm, and to defend their own 
 against cruel enemies. That the common weal of the realm should not 
 be burdened with inordinate taxes, until the patrimony, with which the 
 
Courtney's proceedings against wicklif. 161 
 
 clergy was endowed, was exhausted ; for that was all property of the 
 poor, to be used for their benefit in the spirit of charity ; as it would 
 be, if the clergy lived in the perfection of primitive poverty. If any 
 bishop or parish priest fell knowingly into the contempt of God, the 
 king was not only warranted but also bound, to confiscate the temporal 
 goods of such bishop or priest ; otherwise he would neglect the realm.' 
 That the king should employ no bishop or priest in secular affairs ; as 
 well king as clergyman would otherwise be Christ's betrayer. That the 
 king should cause no person to be arrested because he remained under 
 excommunication, till it should be proved by the law of God that he 
 remained justly under excommunication ; for many had been excom- 
 municated through haste and imprudence, in cases where, according to 
 the laws of God and the church, they ought not to have suffered ex- 
 communication. To arrest a man, when he did his whole duty, was a 
 work of the devil. The contrary, though its consequences might be 
 neither felt nor cared for, yet reduced the state to great confusion ; 
 for an evil which is not felt, and which is therefore considered a trifle 
 and little thought of, draws after it consequences only so much the 
 more disastrous.^ 
 
 The insurrection of the peasants had another injurious eifect onWick- 
 lifs cause, that in the same year, 1381, the milder archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, Simon Sudbury, was murdered, and WilHam Courtney, bishop 
 of London, a man inclined to more violent measures, one of the fiercest 
 opponents of Wicklif, was appointed his successor to the see of Canter- 
 bury. This prelate now took advantage of his power to proceed more 
 vigorously against Wicklif. But the latter appealed to parliament, and 
 in his memorial proposed, that all persons entangled in private religions 
 devised by sinful men, should be left free to adopt, without molestation, 
 the law of Christ alone, which, having been given by Christ to his apos- 
 tles, was far more perfect than any such religion invented by sinful 
 men. That all who had unreasonably and wrongfully condemned this 
 whole counsel given by Christ should be corrected on account of so 
 gross an error, and the same publicly made known. That tithes and 
 oblations should be given and received to the end which God's law and 
 the ordinances of the pope had determined ; and for the same reason 
 they should be taken away, namely in all cases where they were not 
 used conformably to their original design. Christ's doctrine of the holy 
 supper should be publicly taught in the churches ; and the opposite 
 doctrine, which had been set up by accursed hypocrites and heretics, 
 and by worldly priests ignorant of God's law, \_8hould he rejected.^ 
 The last three words were not found in the MSS. used by Lewis, and 
 are therefore supplied by conjecture .^ 
 
 Wicklif had, in the mean time, ever since his return from Bruges, 
 become more bold and violent every day in his attacks upon the mendi- 
 cants. In a paper put forth about this time (1382), he affirms that he 
 could point out fifty heresies, and more, in their orders. He attacked 
 
 * Christum regis domini temporalis con- ' Walsingham, p. 283. 
 temptum ponderans. ' Lewis, p. 84, (new ed. p. 98.) 
 
 14* 
 
162 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 them as promoters of human ordinances to the injury of divine truth. 
 He sought to show that their whole mode of hfe was one at variance 
 ■with the example of Christ ; that by their vows Christian liberty was 
 abridged ; and, in a time when men were incapable of examining for 
 themselves, obligations were imposed on them which they could not 
 fulfil ; that men would thus be diverted from the most wholesome sort 
 of labor after the example of Christ, that of preaching Christ's gospel 
 -where it was most needed, without being confined to any single spot. 
 He accused them of disturbing the parish priests in the labors of their 
 calling.' While however, in other contests with this party, Wicklif 
 could reckon upon powerful patrons, the case was altered in this con- 
 troversy on so weighty a doctrine. 
 
 To the Duke of Lancaster, Wicklif's old patron, this step of the reform- 
 er was extremely unwelcome. It is said that he went himself, in person, 
 to Oxford, for the purpose of advising Wicklif against this course, and 
 of persuading him not to meddle with these things. But Wicklif was 
 not so to be persuaded to give up a particle of the truth which he had 
 advanced ; and we see that although he availed himself of such aid of 
 the powerful as might offer itself, in opposing the hierarchy, and al- 
 though he would gladly have joined himself with the civil power, yet 
 it was far from any thoughts of his, to place reliance on these helps, 
 and to begin the battle on this reliance. He bravely persevered, even 
 when he saw his old patrons declaring against him. Courtney, the new 
 archbishop of Canterbury, convoked on the 17th of May, in a Francis- 
 can monastery in London, a council to examine into Wicklif's affair. 
 The proceedings were interrupted by an earthquake ; for which reason 
 Wicklif was wont to call this assembly derisively the earthquake- 
 council.2 He regarded the event as a judgment of God in favor of his 
 doctrine. He says, in his later confession : 3 " The council charged 
 Christ and the saints with a heresy ; hence the earth trembled and 
 shook, and a strong voice answered in the place of God, as it happened 
 at the time of the last passion of Christ (John xii.), when he was 
 condemned to bodily death."* The archbishop, however, encouraged 
 the prelates by explaining the fact as a divine judgment of the oppo- 
 site kind — a notification that, as nature was purified, by such shocks, 
 of poisonous exhalations, so the church was to be purified of the venom 
 of heresy. By this council a number of Wicklif's propositions were 
 condemned, either as heretical or erroneous ; partly, such as he had 
 actually affirmed, for example, on the Lord's supper ; on the limits of 
 ecclesiastical and civil power ; on what belongs to the right discharge 
 of the duties of clergymen ; in opposition to the secularization of the 
 church and of the papacy ; on the papal dignity, in its right sense, be- 
 ing conditioned upon the personal character of the person administering 
 it.3 The archbishop put forth an ordinance against the Wicklifite doc- 
 
 ' Lewis, p. 20, (new ed. p. 30.) dampnyde to bodely doth. 
 
 ' Lewis, p. 95, (new ed. p 117.) ^ Wicklif says ot these judgments of the 
 
 ' Knighton, p. 2650. council, the mendicants have poisoned the 
 
 * Wherefore the erthe tremblidc fayland kingdom of England at their earthquakc- 
 
 maynnus voys ansveryde for Cjod als it council in London. Dial. 292. 
 
 dide in tyme of his pa.ssione whan he was 
 
WICKLTF*S DEFENCE AGAINST THE EARTHQUAKE-COUNCIL. 1G3 
 
 trines, addressed to the chancellor of Oxford university, to which, 
 however, the university at first paid but very little attention.^ But the 
 archbishop induced Kin<^ Richard to issue a command, directin;^ that 
 all persons who there taught Wicklifite doctrines, should be placed 
 under arrest.^ Wicklif speaks of the secret plots in London and Lin- 
 coln, to kill off the poor priests.^ After this he published a new con- 
 fession on the subject of the Lord's supper, in which he took pains to 
 guard af!;ainst the insinuation that he did not acknowledge the true 
 body of Christ in the sacrament ; though he by no means retracted his 
 opinions, but so expressed himself that there could be no difficulty in 
 recognizing them in this new form. He declared,'* very decidedly, against 
 the doctrine of transubstantiation ; inveighed against those whom he 
 calls the sect of accident-worshippers, and after having spoken of the 
 prevailing errors, concludes by saying : " But I believe the truth will 
 finally conquer." He defended himself, in a particular tract, against 
 the so-called earthquake-council. With regard to many of the doc- 
 trines which had been condemned there, he could with perfect justice 
 declare, that he had never preached them. Others, which he had 
 really taught, he defended against the imputation of heresy. He 
 cleared himself, for example, from the charge that he had made the ob- 
 jective validity of the sacraments depend on the subjective character of 
 the person who administered them. Sophisters ought to know that 
 even a reprobate might still perform fully the sacramental acts, though 
 it would be to his own condemnation ; for they are not the authors of 
 these sacraments, but God reserves in his own hands that divine power 
 on which the efficacy of sacraments depends. ^ With prayer, however, 
 the case was quite different. In the seventh proposition condemned 
 under his name, the assertion was ascribed to him, that a people may 
 punish their sinning rulers according to their own good pleasure. On 
 this point Wicklif, in defending himself, remarks : '* This charge is in- 
 serted in calumniation of , the poor priests, with a view to make them 
 odious to the secular lords ; when the truth is that the poor priests do 
 their utmost to counteract, by the divine law, the insurrection of ser- 
 vants against their lords, and declare to servants their obligation to 
 obey their masters, even though they may be tyrants. In the paper in 
 which he examines the articles condemning his doctrines,^ he persists 
 in affirming that, according to the divine word, the king was bound to 
 deprive the clergy of the goods which they abused. 
 
 The movements in Oxford induced Wicklif to retire in the same 
 year, 1382, to his parish at Lutterworth. He was there seized with 
 a paralysis. But his courage and zeal suffered no abatement under 
 this affliction. He kept on contending to the very last. Meantime 
 
 * Walsingham, p. 286. phisters shulden know well that a cursed 
 ^ Wilkins concilia magn. Brit. Lend, man doth fully the sacraments, though it 
 
 1737, tom. IV, p. 156, be to his damning, for they ben not autours 
 
 ^ Quod tam Londiniae quam Lincolniae of these sacraments, but God kepeth that 
 
 laborarunt assidue, ad sacerdotes fideles et divinity to himself, 
 
 pauperes exstinguendum. Dialog, p. 296. « The great sentence of curse expound- 
 
 * Lewis, p. 272, (new ed. p. 323.) ed, Lewis, p. 99, (new ed. p. 121.) 
 
 * Lewis, p. 96, (new ed. p. 118): So- 
 
164 , HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 broke out the papal schism of which we have spoken. The enfeebling 
 effect of this event on the papal power was favorable to AVicklif's 
 cause ; and he understood well how to avail himself o-f the divided 
 opinions on the question who was pope, and of the quarrel between 
 the two popes, to back up his attack on the papacy itself, and his 
 arguments against the necessity of a visible supreme head of the 
 church. Accordingly, in a paper on the schism he says : ' " Trust we 
 in the help of Christ on this point, for he hath begun already to help 
 us graciously, in that he hath clove the head of Antichrist, and made 
 the two parts fight one against the other. For it is not, doubtful, 
 that the sin of the popes, which hath been so long continued, hath 
 brought in this division." lie says, " Let the rival pontiffs continue 
 to launch their anathemas against each other, or should one of them 
 prevail, in either case a severe wound has been inflicted. He calls 
 upon the emperor and kings to lend their assistance in this cause, to 
 maintain God's law, to recover the heritage of the church, and to 
 destroy the foul sins of clerks, saving their persons. Thus would 
 peace be established, and simony destroyed. He contests the pre- 
 tended infallibility of the popes, and denies their arrogant pretensions 
 with regard to absolutism and indulgence.^ In a work still unpublish- 
 ed '^ On the church and its government," after speaking of the prev- 
 alence of simony in the church, he says : "And so God would no 
 longer suffer the fiend to reign in only one such priest, but for the sin 
 which they had done made division among two, so that men, in Christ's 
 name, may the more easily overcome them both. Evil is weakened by 
 diffusion, no less than good ; and this now moveth poor priests to speak 
 heartily in this matter." In his sermons preached at Lutterworth, he 
 made frequent allusions to the schism ; thus in a sermon on Romans 
 xiii, when he says, " The pope is not on Christ's side, who put his soul 
 for his sheep, but on the side of Antichrist who putteth many souls 
 for his pride.. This man feedeth not the sheep of Christ, as Christ 
 thrice commanded Peter, but spoileth them and slayeth them, and lead- 
 eth them many wrong ways." 
 
 The bull proclaiming a crusade and indulgence, and put forth by 
 pope Urban VI. against his rival Clement VII. in Avignon, afforded 
 Wicklif occasion for many new and fierce assaults on the popes, in 
 which he exposed the unchristian character of this procedure, and 
 the futihty of the proclamation of indulgence. 3 In the paper above 
 mentioned which contains a criticism of the sentences of condemnation 
 passed on his doctrines, he reproaches the pope for using the banner 
 of the cross, that symbol of peace, of grace, and of charity, to lead 
 men on to the destruction of christians, from love to two false priests, 
 open antichrists, in order to maintain their worldly state, and oppress 
 Christendom. And he asks : " Why is not the proud priest in Rome 
 willing to grant full pardon to all men when they live in peace, char- 
 ity, and patience, as he grants it to all who will engage in the work 
 
 » Vaughan, vol. II, p. 5. ' Lewis, p. 99, (new ed. p. 121.) 
 
 « Ibid. p. 6. 
 
wicklif's death. ^ 165 
 
 of destroying christians ? " When cited by the pope to appear be- 
 fore his tribunal in Rome, he published a bold letter to him, expressing 
 his views openly. lie declares that believing the gospel as he did, 
 to be the supreme rule, higher than all other laws, he considered the 
 pope as bound above all men to keep this law, being the highest 
 representative of Christ on earth. For the greatness of Christ's re- 
 presentative was not to be measured by the standard of worldly great- 
 ness, but by the degree in which a person represents Christ by a vir- 
 tuous life. He supposes that Christ, during his life on earth, was the 
 poorest of men. No christian should follow the pope or any saint in 
 heaven, except so far as such an one follows Christ. " For — says he 
 — James and John were in error, and Peter and Paul sinned." He 
 exhorts the pope, therefore, to surrender his secular rule to secular 
 lords, and he would soon induce all his clergy to do the same ; for so 
 had Christ done and taught his disciples to do, till the evil fiend blind- 
 ed this world. So far as it depended on himself he was ready to go 
 to Rome ; but Christ had bid him do the contrary, and taught him to 
 obey God rather than man. "And I hope — he writes — of our 
 pope, that he will be no antichrist nor act in direct contradiction to the 
 "will of Christ ; for if he cites me against reason, and this unreasonable 
 citation is followed up, then he is an open antichrist." An honest in- 
 tention did not suffice to excuse Peter, nor prevent Christ from calling 
 him Satan ; so in the present case a blind intention and bad counsel 
 would not serve to excuse the pope. But when he required poor 
 priests to undertake a journey which was beyond their means, this 
 could not be excused by the pious intention, nor so as to prevent his 
 being called antichrist. God tempts no man beyond what he is able 
 to bear ; why should a man require such a service from another ? 
 "Therefore — he concludes — we pray God in behalf of our Pope 
 Urban VI., that his holy purpose of old may not be hindered and frus- 
 trated by the fiend. And Christ, who cannot he, says, that the fiend 
 of man is in his own house." ^ 
 
 While WickUf was hearing mass on the day of the Holy Innocents, 
 in the year 1384, in his church at Lutterworth, he fell down just as 
 the host was elevated, struck by a violent shock of apoplexy ; his 
 tongue was so palsied that he could not speak till he died. This event 
 took place on Silvester eve. 
 
 We will now proceed to the exposition of Wicklif 's doctrine. His 
 philosophy and theology were closely interwoven : accordingly the an- 
 tagonism of realism and nominalism entered deeply also into his 
 theology .2 Nominalism in fact appeared to him something heretical. 
 It was by reason of this false confounding together of the provinces of 
 philosophy and theology, that he accused the nominalists of necessa- 
 rily misrepresenting the truth of Holy Scripture ; since in the history 
 
 ' Lewis, letter of excuse to pope Urban pears to him Plato's doctrine of ideas. He 
 
 VI, p. 283, (new ed. p. 333.) says : Ceitum est, quod sunt uuiversalia ex 
 
 ' In support of his doctrine of the reality parti rei testiticata tarn ab Aristotele, quam 
 
 of general conceptions he appeals to Aris- Platone. Licet Tlato subtilius ascendit ia 
 
 totie ; still more profound, however, ap- uuiversalia idcarum. Dial. p. 4L 
 
166 ^ HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 of the creation of the species, they could not receive the account in 
 its true sense, but must understand it as speaking of 7iame^, without real 
 substance. 1 He took ground decidedly against those, who held to an 
 opposition between truths philosophical and truths theological. He 
 calls it inf\ituation to assert that any light of nature is at variance with 
 the light of faith, so that in the light of faith it may be necessary to 
 believe what in the light of nature is impossible. He held that such 
 blindness was in reality no li(jht of nature, but darkness ; since two such 
 contradictory lights could not possibly exist together.^ Bat since the 
 fall, a certain imperfection cleaves to the weak light of nature which 
 God graciously remedies by imparting his own knowledge to mankind. 
 And accordingly one man discovers by the light of nature, what ano- 
 ther comes to know by the light of faith. Startini' from his realism, 
 W icklif affirms a correspondence between truth in thoufjht and being 
 as it is grounded in God. Men may frame to themselves many 
 thoughts which do not correspond to being ; — thoughts of things which 
 are in themselves impossible ; but these are no true thoughts. There 
 is no actual reception of the substance of such thoughts into the soul, but 
 a reception merely of their signs, a presentation of mere words. He 
 distinguishes, as a realist, the intelligere res from the mere signa 
 renan, verba cogifans.^ But this cannot be transferred to God. 
 Everything posited in his ideas is in ideal being one with himself;* 
 hence that only is possible which is actual, though men may conceive 
 of many things as possible, which in fact are not possible.^ Men may 
 represent to themselves many monstrous things, to which no ideas in 
 God correspond ; but God can know nothing which is not God him- 
 self, or in some way ideally represented in God. 6 Everything posi- 
 tive in the creature must be referred to God ; God himself produces 
 it, though not in the form in which it is produced by finite creatures.^ 
 He defends, against Aristotle, the Platonic doctrine of ideas. He 
 finds in Aristotle a misapprehension of the nature of ideas, since by 
 them is not to be understood anything self-subsistent ; the term, in his 
 view, denotes the form in which God knows things, the intellect ualit as 
 creaturce. The idea is, in its essence, God himself; in its form, it is 
 the mode in which God knows created things.® With his doctrine of 
 ideas accordingly is connected the proposition, that whatever is pos- 
 
 ' Et species in Mose sonuerat in princi- ^ He supposes quod est and quod potest 
 
 pio lil)ri sui, vocans reruni creatarum prin- esse to l)e identical, quia omne quod habet 
 
 cipia species et jrenera, ut patet in princi- esse intelli^'ibile, est in deo. Omne sig- 
 
 pio genesis, quam induljic species intellexit niticahile foret secundum esse intelligibile 
 
 non esse terminos, vcl conceptus, sicut ipse deus. 
 
 somniant hacrctici, cxponcntes tidcm scrij)- ^ Deus non potest quicquam intelligere, 
 
 turae ad sensum, (juem spiritus sanctus nisi sit ipse deus, vcl in deo aliqualiter 
 
 non flajritat. Il>id. p. 42. ideatum. P. 10. 
 
 '^ Quia non talia duo lumina rcpugnan- ^ Deus facit omne positivum, quod crea- 
 
 lia. Iliid. p. 16. tura sua fcccrit, et tamcn ex hoc non se- 
 
 ^ 8ed (juamvis homo vcl diabolus pos- quitur, quod comedat, lo<[uatur et ambulet 
 
 sunt intelligere sic erronce, cum ncc sua caet. P. 14. 
 
 intcllcctio nee apparcntia tcrminatur ad * P. 25 : Idea est essentialiter natura di- 
 
 rem apparentem vel intcllectam extra sig- vina, et formaliter ratio, secundum quam 
 
 num. Il)id. p. 116. deus intcUigit creaturas. 
 
 * Ibid. p. 8. 
 
wicklif's doctrine op predesti.vation. 167 
 
 sible is actual.^ He denies the existence in God of any such dis- 
 tinction as that of power or faculty and^action ; omnipotence, therefore, 
 rehites only to what actually takes place. And as God can produce 
 nothing in himself which he does not actually produce, so he can pro- 
 duce nothing without himself which he does not actually bring forth in 
 its proper time.^ 
 
 We see in Wicklif the tendency of reform combined with an Augus- 
 tinianism which went far beyond Augustin himself in its polemical hos- 
 tility to everything that seemed verging on Pelagianism ; to all worth 
 or abihty on the part of the creature ; and which, in fact, amounted 
 to the denial of free-will. A one-sided religious element in Wicklif, 
 here united itself with his stern speculative consistency : we meet with 
 elements which in their logical evolution would have led to pantheism. 
 Everything, according to his notions, enters as a part necessarily into 
 the fulfilment of the decrees of predestination. This excludes all 
 conditions. No falling away from grace, therefore, is possible, because 
 grace is a thing grounded in the divine predestination ; although for a 
 transient moment a predestinated person may sin, and for a transient 
 moment a reprobate partake of grace. In the developments of time, 
 the fact that the one is a praescitus, the other a praedestinatus, is con- 
 ditioned on the sinful life of the one and the pious life of the other ; 
 but the original eternal ground of all is still the divine predestination, 
 •which is made actual by all temporal instrumentalities ; for all is 
 grounded in the divine ideas, which are one with God himself. To 
 the harmony of the world, to which God makes everything relate, be- 
 long, according to the notions of Wicklif, both good and evil.^ It may 
 be conceded, that many praesciti find themselves in the state of grace 
 m their present righteousness ; and that many p-aedestinaii grievously 
 sin in their present state of unrighteousness ; but the praesciti never 
 find themselves in the position of final perseverance, nor the praedesti- 
 nati in that of final obduracy. On this ground, he rejects the meri" 
 turn de conyriio as an unscriptural fiction, something still worse than 
 the doctrine of Pelagius.4 
 
 It is plain, that from Wicklif's doctrine follow unconditional neces- 
 sity ,5 and the denial of free-will and of contingency. Still Wicklif would 
 not throw back the causality of evil upon God. — Evil, as such, is what- 
 ever is not grounded in the divine ideas. It is known of God precise- 
 ly as that which is not grounded in His ideas — per carentiam ideae ; 
 as darkness is known by light, and as the absence of light. Still 
 nothing is thereby gained for moral contemplation. Evolving that 
 
 ^ Deus nihil intelligit, nisi quod existit, praecedente tamen causa aetema, tarn ex 
 
 dum potest existere, et sic omne quod ex- parte dei taliter ordinantis, quam ex parte 
 
 istere potest, existit. P. 26. futurititionis creaturae taliter ordinatae. 
 
 ' Sicut deus ad intra nihil potest pro- Ibid. p. 74. 
 
 ducere, nisi absolute necessario illud pro- * Ibid. p. 101. 
 
 durat, sic nihil ad extra potest producere, * Among the 45 articles attributed to 
 
 nisi pro suo tempore illud producat. Pag. "Wicklif, the proposition : Omnia de neces- 
 
 28. sitate absoluta eveniunt might justly be 
 
 ^ Ita concedendum videtur. quod tern- condemned as one actually belonging to 
 
 porale sit causa praedestinationis aeternae, him. 
 
168 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRIXE. 
 
 "which is contained in the thought, it would follow from it that evil, as 
 evil, has for God no existence at all : but looked at from the standing- 
 point of the idea, all is necessary as belonging to the harmony of the 
 world. Wicklif himself confesses the mischievous practical conse- 
 quences to which his doctrine of unconditional necessity would lead. 
 But his iron mind refuses to be frightened by such consequences. He 
 says : " The wicked may, no doubt, find occasion from this doctrine 
 to do many wicked things, and if it be in their power will actually do 
 them. But it is unknown who those are ; just as it is unknown to me 
 but that some person will necessarily dash out my brains, and then 
 grossly plead in excuse, that as the thing was necessary, he could not 
 have helped it. But I will tell thee, for so irrational a deed he is 
 necessarily guilty." ^ Accordingly, all sin appears to him a necessary 
 thing ; and so the punishment of sin. All is required in order to the 
 beauty of the universe.2 The whole multitude of the lost will serve to 
 enhance the glory of the blessed.s God is none the less free, for 
 doing anything in a way which is unconditionally necessary ; as for 
 example, in the generation of the Son, and in the procession of the 
 Holy Spirit. This agency, however, in the essence of God, is neces- 
 sarily an eternal one ; and the facts which result from it are in time. 
 So far as this goes, they may be styled contingent.'* It is an advan- 
 tage of Wicklif's realistic bent, leading him to affirm, that everything 
 possible must at some time be actual, that it enables him to put aside 
 the idle questions of the later Scholasticism about mere possibilities. 
 *' And thus we are freed — says he — from many superfluous specula- 
 tions, with which the heretics (among whom he classes the nominalists) 
 torture themselves in regard to certain supposable cases. It is more 
 wholesome to study settled truths than idly to lose ourselves in mere 
 fictions, of which we cannot prove the possibility, nor that they or the 
 knowledge of them can be of the least benefit to man ; while many 
 settled and profitable truths still lie hidden from man." ^ 
 
 The true protestant principle comes forth in Wicklif when he ascribes 
 the whole work of salvation to Christ alone. He expresses it in oppo- 
 sition to the worship of saints. There is no saint in word or deed 
 deserving of praise, except so far as he has derived all that for which 
 he is praised from Christ.s " Hence our church ^ — he says — has this 
 reasonable custom, that when a saint is invoked, she addresses the 
 prayer to Christ : not principally to that saint, but to Christ." Nor is 
 the festival of a saint to any purpose, except so far as it tends to 
 magnify Christ, excites the soul to adore him, kindles in it the love of 
 him. When, therefore, the observance of a saint-day deviates from 
 
 ' Dial. p. 105, « Ibid, p 166 : Et patct, quod dens non 
 
 ' Veriimtanien ilia conccssa sequensest, illibertatur quodcumque facero, licet abso- 
 
 quod omnia pcccata mundi de necessitate lute necessario illud ajr^t, sicut non illiber- 
 
 evcnieiit, ct per ronseqiiens, quod ornries tatur produccre verbum vel spiritum sanc- 
 
 peccatores secundum formam, (jua dens turn, licet absolute necessario illud apat. 
 
 dccrcverat, punientur, et totum lioc facit Actio tamen ista ad intra necessario est 
 
 ad pulchritudinem univer.si. Ibid. p. 148. aetema, et factio est temporalis. Ideo di- 
 
 ^ Totus numerns dainnatorum ccdet citur, quod factio est contingens. 
 
 mundo ad profcctum et gloriam bcatorum. * Ibid. p. 164. 
 
 V. 154. « Ibid. p. 171. ' Page 172. 
 
WICKLIF AGAINST THE WORSHIP OF SAINTS. 169 
 
 this end, the motive must be avarice or some other sin. Hence many 
 are disposed to think that all those festivals should be abolished, and 
 the festival of Christ alone remain ; for thus Christ would be kept in 
 more lively remembrance, and the devotion of the faithful would not 
 be SO' improperly distributed between Christ and his members. Foolish 
 must he be who, instead of clinging to Christ alone, seeks the media- 
 tion of some other. "For Christ — savs he — ever lives near the 
 Father and is the most ready to intercede for us, imparting himself to 
 the soul of every wayfaring pilgrim who loves him. Therefore should 
 no man seek first the mediation of other saints, for he is more ready to 
 help than any one of them." The soul must be distracted by the 
 multitude of the blessed, to which it turns, the strength of the feelings 
 for Christ must be weakened, as it is but a finite thing. It may like- 
 wise turn out, that the foolish devotee is worshipping a canonized 
 devil. " When only Christ is invoked, the other saints, at his bid- 
 ding, help with their spiritual intercessions ; and, however much they 
 may be worshipped apart, still they will assist none except in the mea- 
 sure they are commanded to do so by Christ. It seems a folly, to 
 leave the fountain which is assuredly more ready to bestow itself on 
 every one, and turn away to the distant and troubled brook ; and 
 especially where faith does not teach that such a brook originates in 
 the living fountain." At least, then, those saints only should be 
 worshipped, who are known to be such from the word of God. He is 
 opposed to particular churches taking pains to procure the canoniza- 
 tion of their saints from the Roman see, a practice which he traces to 
 avarice or the want of faith. " Who — says he — would ever think 
 of employing the interest of some court fool to obtain an interview with 
 the more accessible and more gracious king himself? The saints in 
 heaven are no court fools ; but, incorporated by the grace of their 
 Saviour with Christ, they are still infinitely less, in comparison with 
 him, than the court fool is to his earthly prince." It were foolish, on 
 a dangerous journey, to leave the straight and sure highway, and 
 strike into some unsafe and unknown by-path ; inasmuch, then, as the 
 life of Christ and his rules are plainly open for our inspection, it would 
 seem as if we must consider the contemplation of the life of others as 
 of far less account. He calls the canonization of saints, expressing 
 doubtless his own opinion, though he speaks of it as the view of many, 
 a blasphemous thing ; since without direct revelation no man can be 
 certain about it. The miracles by which it was pretended to defend 
 the canonization of saints, he puts down as delusions ; for the devil, 
 "who can clothe himself as an angel of Hght, might perform still greater 
 miracles in the person of a departed reprobate. The devil never 
 sleeps ; and he deceives the people whenever he can ; hence many, 
 thus led astray, honor a new-made saint more than the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Adopting the common definition of a sacrament, invisihilis gratiae 
 forma et causa, Wicklif remarks : " Every visible creature is also a 
 
 » Ibid. p. 174. * Ibid. p. 180. 
 
 VOL. V. 15 
 
170 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 sacrament, since it is a visible form of the invisible grace of the Crea- 
 tor, exhibits the image of his ideas, and may become to creatures a 
 cause of invitation and of kno\yledge. Even a sermon would, in this 
 sense, be a sacrament, since it is to the hearers a sign of holiness. He 
 thinks that many signs might be cited from Scripture, 'which could be 
 called sacraments -with as much propriety as the seven J *"' In tJie times 
 of the Old Covenant — he says — the church, like a virgin still in her 
 youth, had to be educated by many sensible signs ; but, -with the 
 growth of the church in the times of the law of grace, we are relieved 
 from the necessity of giving so much heed to such signs." He finds a 
 threefold abuse of signs in his own time : First, that signs of the Old 
 Covenant were observed, which had been abolished. Secondly, a wan- 
 ton coquetry with signs. There were many who showed such careful 
 solicitude for these signs, which had no foundation in Scripture but 
 were mere human inventions, that they would sooner transgress one of 
 tlie ten commandments, than deviate from them in the least. Tliirdly, 
 overloading the church which Christ intended should be free, with such 
 figures, even beyond what had been done in the church of the Old 
 Testament. Avoiding this threefold abuse, the church should retain 
 the moderate use of those signs in particular which had been instituted 
 by Christ. Baptism, for example, was a sign instituted by Christ ; and 
 is necessary, because in this our state of pilgrimage, we are without 
 clear knowledge, and need to be guided in the right way by such figures.^ 
 Confirmation, he represents as a calumny against God, since it is af- 
 firmed by it, that bishops give the Holy Spirit in a new way, or con- 
 firm the giving of it. But this means, giving more than the Holy Spirit. 
 The apostles (in Acts, ch. viii.) only prayed that those who believed 
 might receive the Holy Ghost. He says : 3 " I boldly affirm, that in 
 the early church, in the time of the apostle Paul, two orders of the 
 clergy were sufficient, priests and deacons ; in the time of Paul, bishop 
 and presbyter were the same." Also in his Dialogue, he asserts that 
 reason, as well as God's word, requires that while the wants of the 
 clergy should be provided for, they should not be overburthened with 
 temporal things, because these temporal things were of no use to the 
 possessors, except as applied to the ends of their spiritual calling. 
 The greater the poverty under which an evangelical man discharged 
 his vocation, the more acceptable he was to Christ, other things being 
 equal. It seemed probable to him that Silvester and others, in ac- 
 cepting the dotation, grievously sinned. But we may suppose that they 
 afterwards did fruitful penance.'* He maintains that princes were not 
 only authorized, but bound, on pain of damnation, to deprive the church 
 of all her misappropriated secular goods : since they ought to repent 
 of their own folly, and do satisfaction for the sinful act by which they 
 had defiled the church of Christ.s Was it objected that they had 
 
 ' Ibid. p. 181. ter dclinqucnte, nee solum quod illis licet 
 
 ^ lt)id. p. 215. hoc fucere, sed quod dcbent sub poena 
 
 ^ Il)id. p. 225. damnationis };ehennae, cum dcbent de sua 
 
 * Ibid. p. 234. stultitia poenitere et satisfaccre pro pecca- 
 
 ' Ibid. p. 237 : Quod nedum possunt au- to, quo Christi ecclesiam macularunt. 
 fcrre temporalia ab ecclesia habitudinali- 
 
"WICKLTF AGAINST MULTIPLICATION OF SACRAMENTS. 171 
 
 vowed such gifts to the church ? he replies : a vow at variance with 
 duty is not hinding ; as, for example, if a man has vowed to kill his 
 brother, is he bound to perform that wicked deed ? He declares heart- 
 felt repentance and confession of sins before God to be the main thing 
 on which all depends. Auricular confession he holds to be salutary, 
 but not absolutely necessary.^ He contends against the doctrine of the 
 thesaurus meritorum supcrerogationis^ which laid the foundation for in- 
 dulgences. He styles it a gross blasphemy ; and remarks upon it^ 
 that neither the pope nor Christ can deal otherwise with souls, or other- 
 wise grant remission, than as God has eternally ordained in his right- 
 ous counsels. But it is not proved that the pope, or any other one, 
 has any just reason for so doing. Then he asks, in -what member of 
 the church does this merit reside ? If it is in Christ and his members, 
 then it would seem strange that the pope should have power to deprive 
 the subjects of that which belongs to them ; first^ because the acci- 
 dent cannot exist separate from its subject ; secondly^ because they 
 have verily received their full recompense in exact proportion to their 
 desert. How then can the pope wrong God and them by any such pre- 
 tended purloining ? Finally, by the same principle, the pope has 
 power, by the authority thus conceded to him, of saving all ; and there- 
 fore it would be his fault if one individual, living in his own time, 
 should go to perdition. 
 
 He affirms, that after the first thousand years, Satan was let loose for 
 the next thousand, and that then the church declined remarkably from 
 the imitation of Christ.^ Hence arose the efforts of pious men to bring 
 about a reformation, men who sought to restore the living imitation of 
 Christ. Among these he reckons the efforts of Dominic and Francis, 
 in whom, however, he deplores the lack of Christian wisdom ; and he 
 remarks that afterwards hypocrisy and impure motives soon crept in. 
 If the order of Knights Templar was abolished on account of its de- 
 generacy, how much more ought these orders to be abolished ?* He 
 complains of the pharisaical spirit of his age :5 " I turn — says he — 
 to our Pharisees. The ej^es of our private religion are too much daz- 
 zled by that Pharisaical pride. For a bodily fast is prized more highly, 
 or its non-observance, which can be noticed, is more regarded, than 
 spiritual fasting. Therefore, from the folly of those orders, Lord, de- 
 liver us ! " 
 
 In the writings of Wicklif, we meet with a remarkable proph- 
 ecy of Luther's reformation, where he states that from monachism 
 itself would go forth a reaction, founded in the very essence of Chris- 
 tianity, against the monastic life, and to the renovation of the church 
 in the spirit of Paul. " I suppose — says he — that some brothers, 
 •whom God may vouchsafe to teach, will be devoutly converted to the 
 primitive religion of Christ, and abandoning their false interpretations 
 of genuine Christianity, after having demanded or acquired for them- 
 selves permission from Antichrist, will freely return to the original re- 
 
 ' Ibid. p. 251. 3 Ibid. p. 280. ^ P. 144. 
 
 * Ibid. p. 278. 4 P. 284. 
 
172 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRIXE. 
 
 Hgion of Christ ; and then they "will build up the church like Paul." ^ 
 Thus he expresses the expectation, that a return to the true "way of fol- 
 lowing Christ, would proceed from the bosom of monachism itself, that 
 its friends would obtain liberty from the popes to live in their own way, 
 or would find means of conquering that liberty, and this would be the 
 commencement of a renovated church, purified from the Jewish leaven, 
 a church in the sense of the apostle Paul. 
 
 "Wicklif was still entanirled in the old scholastic views of the doc- 
 trine of justification. He gave especial prominence to the subjective 
 side of this doctrine ; and hence he agreed with Augustin and the 
 schoolmen on this point, that no one could have certainty whether he 
 belonged or not to the number of the elect. It is evident that in his 
 case as in that of Augustin and the Thomists, this might be held in 
 perfect consistency with his referring everything to grace alone, and 
 placing freewill utterly in the back-ground. And hence, too, Wicklif 
 may sometimes give prominence to the trust of a christian in the con- 
 sciousness of his own pious life, though he regarded everything in that 
 life as being but a work of divine grace. Accordingly he says : When 
 God rewards a good work, he crowns his own gift. Hence, too, we may 
 with Yaughan,2 compare Wicklif with Luther, in his views of the doc- 
 trine of justification. But trust in the redemption by Christ is, in truth, 
 made the central point also by the scholastic theologians of the 13th 
 century. Yet, in making this subjective conception of justification his 
 point of departure, and deriving everything from the divine fellowship 
 of fife with Christ, he came to a more profound and spiritual concep- 
 tion of the church, as an inward unity to be traced to the same com- 
 mon inward fact, in contradistinction from the outward unity contend- 
 ed for on the position held by the church. " Holy Church — he says 
 — is the congregation of just men for whom Christ shed his blood ; 
 and not mere stones, and timber, and earthly dross, which the priests 
 of Antichrist magnify more than the righteousness of God and the 
 souls of men.3 So he declaims against those who, when men speak of 
 holy church, understand thereby prelates and priests, with monks, 
 canons, and friars, and all men who have tonsures, though they live 
 accursedly, and never so contrary to the law of God. And he con- 
 . tends against the distinction which, from this point of view, was made 
 between spirituals and seculars.^ '' Those people — he says — would 
 not reckon as belonging to the church the secular men of holy church, 
 though they live . never so truly according to God's law, and die in 
 perfect charity. Nevertheless, all who shall be saved in the bliss of 
 heaven are members of holy church, and no more." So from this 
 position he combats the hypothesis of the necessity of a visible head of 
 the church. "Prelates — he observes — make many new points of 
 belief, and say it is not enough to beheve in Jesus Christ, and to be 
 
 ' P. 271 : Stippono nntem, quod aJi(ju{ fra- nem Christi primaevani, et tunc aedijicabunt 
 tres quos deus aocere diynatur, ad rciii/ionem ecclesiam siciit Paulus. 
 priinaevam Christi devotiiis convertmtur, et 'II, 359. 
 relicta sua perjidia sive ohtenta sire pdita ^ Ibid. II, 279. 
 
 Antichristi licentia redibunt libere ad rdiyio- * In his work not yet published . of Pre- 
 lates. Vaughan, torn. II, p. 279. 
 
WICKLIF AGAINST THE NECESSITY OF THE PAPACY. 173 
 
 baptized — as Christ says in the gospel by St. Mark — except a mau 
 also believe that the bishop of Rome is the head of holy church. But 
 certainly no apostle of Jesus Christ ever constrained any man to be 
 lieve this of himself. And yet they were certain of their salvation in 
 heaven. How then should any sinful wretch constrain men to believe 
 that he is head of holy church, while he knows not whether he shall 
 be saved or lost ? " A bishop of Rome might possibly be one of those 
 who are to be condemned for their sins ; and in this case men would 
 be compelled to regard a devil of hell as the head of holy church. 
 He makes the true conception of a vicar of Christ to rest on the per- 
 sonal imitation of Christ. In one who exhibits the contrary character, 
 he sees not the vicar of Christ, but rather Antichrist ; as he says : ^ 
 The pope is the chief Antichrist, for he himself falsely pretends that 
 he is the most immediate vicar of Christ and most resembhng him in 
 life; and, consequently, the most humble pilgrim, the poorest man, and 
 the farthest removed from worldly men and worldly things ; when, 
 however, the fact generally is, that he stands first in the opposite sins. 
 He says in one of his last sermons : 2 "So long as Christ is in heaven, 
 the church hath in him the best pope, and that distance hindereth him 
 not in doing his deeds, as he promiseth that he is with his always to 
 the end of the world. We dare not put two heads, lest the church be 
 monstrous." The Head above is therefore commended as alone wor- 
 thy of confidence. As he divided the church into three parts : preach- 
 ers, defenders and laborers, so he describes the clergy in particular as 
 persons whose office is to teach ; for it is characteristic of him to seize 
 the clerical office on this particular side of it, as the preaching office. 
 Preachers should set an example to all of walking after Christ ; they 
 should be nearest to Christ, and nearest heaven, and fullest of charity.^ 
 But the manifold gradations of rank among the clergy he held to be 
 utterly foreign to Christianity. Difficult as it then must have been, he 
 could look at the apostolic age, with sufficient freedom from prejudice 
 to see that these distinctions were of later origin, that at the beginning 
 there was but one order of presbyters. There should be but one 
 spiritual order, he supposed. Originally there were only priests and 
 deacons ; but the fiend, he remarks, has changed this part to many 
 colors, as seculars and religious. And these have both many parts, as 
 popes and cardinals, and bishops, and archdeacons, etc. Hence have 
 arisen sectarian animosities and the spirit of domination ; all this had 
 come of men's forsaking the rule of the New Testament, according to 
 which it were better that there should be but one order.'* 
 
 II. The Movements of Reform in Bohemia. 
 
 1. Forerunners of John Suss, 
 
 The great reformatory movement in Bohemia dates back to Militz, 
 the individual who gave the first impulse to it. We see his influence 
 
 » Dial, p. 130. 3 ii5id. p, 308. 
 
 * Vaughan, torn. II, p. 273 note. •* Ibid. 
 
 15* 
 
174 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 continuing still to operate through his disciples, Matthias of Janow and 
 John Huss. Militz came from Cremsia in Moravia. He was appoint- 
 ed archdeacon to the cathedral church in Prague, enjoyed a hand- 
 some income, and stood high in the esteem of the king of Bohemia, 
 and of the emperor Charles IV., whose secretary and chancellor he 
 was, and whom he attended when he went abroad, as for example, in 
 his journey to German}'. ^ Even then he was distinguished for his 
 untiring, pious zeal for the salvation of souls, for his self-sacrificing, 
 disinterested charity. He devoted himself with an earnest spirit to 
 the duty of church visitations, and when employed on this service de- 
 clined the support he was entitled to from the parish priests, defray- 
 ing his own expenses without living at the cost of any one. 2 His piety 
 had a tinge of ascetic austerity ; a thing not uncommon in the most 
 different periods, with persons of a serious, devout spirit, who, from 
 grieving over the corruption of their times, and from disgust at the 
 worldliness of a clergy sunk in luxury and ease, naturally fell into this 
 peculiar bent. "With his pastoral visitations he w^as in the habit of 
 uniting exercises of penance, wearing a rough hair-shirt, or sometimes 
 two, next to his skin.*'' But the ardent zeal of this good man could not 
 be satisfied with these labors. He felt himself impelled to take a more 
 earnest interest, as a preacher and pastor, in the poor, forsaken peo- 
 ple, whose necessities seemed to require it. This was a duty which 
 he supposed he had yet to learn ; his life appeared to him to be still 
 too worldly. He felt himself moved to renounce splendor, honor, 
 comfort ; to strive after a closer imitation, even to the letter, of the 
 fife of Christ and the apostles. This idea, of whose influence in these 
 times we have often had occasion to speak, the idea of following Christ 
 in preaching the gospel in poverty and humility, had taken possession 
 also of the heart of this devout man. He, therefore, resolved to re- 
 sign his present post, and give up his whole income. In vain did the 
 members of the cathedral chapter try to dissuade him from carrying 
 this resolution into effect. In vain did Ernest, the archbishop of 
 Prague, who felt unwilling to part with such a fellow-laborer, say to 
 him, " What better thing can you possibly do, than to stand by your 
 poor bishop in his watch over the flock ? " He retired, in the autumn 
 of 1363, to the little town of Bischofteinitz, in the Pilsen circuit, where 
 he s[)ent half a year in the capacity of an assistant to the parish priest, 
 zealously laboring as a preacher and curate. The priest owned a fine 
 garden, stocked with fruit-trees. Militz felt himself strongly attracted 
 to this spot. But the stern man, stern and severe to himself, looked 
 even upon this as a temptation of Satan. Thou art come here, said 
 he to himself, not to enjoy thy ease, but to work, to look after poor 
 
 * Vid. Franz Palacky Gcschichte von ^ The words of his disciples in the bio- 
 
 Bohmen, 3 Bd. 1 Abtliiel. Frag. 1845, p. graphical sketeli mentioned in the preced- 
 
 164. ing note, p. 45 : Statini cocpit in cilicio pe- 
 
 ' See the Life of Militz. by one of his ragere poenitcntiam, et quando iter alicu- 
 disciples, which the Jesuit Balhiinis has jus partis arripiel)at. tune duo cilifia caute 
 published in the Miscellaneis hi.st. regni et secrete cognato suo clerieo. nomine Ste- 
 Bohemiae, Pragae, 1682,decadis I, lib. IV, phano, quasi pro majori suo thesauro stu- 
 pors II, tit. 34, p. 44. ^ diose recommcndabat custodienda. 
 
MILITZ, PREACHER OF REPENTANCE IN PRAGUE. 175 
 
 souls ; and he denied himself the relaxation of the garden and the en- 
 joyment of its fruit. 
 
 Having disciplined himself in this way for half a year, he returned 
 to Prague ; and without accepting any particular office to which a 
 salary was affixed, he began to preach to the people in the lan'^ua^e 
 of the country, first at St. Nicholas in the Klein quarter, then at St. 
 Aegidius in the old town. His novel and simple way of preachinf^ 
 met, at first, with but little flivor.^ He was derided on account of his 
 pronunciation, and his want of readiness in repeating certain liturgical 
 forms, and in announcing festivals.^ He had but a small number of 
 hearers. His friends adv^ised him to give up preaching, as he could 
 accomplish nothing in that way. How many devout and learned men 
 had failed as preachers ! Why should he expend his energies to no 
 purpose ? But Militz replied : " If I can save but a single soul, it will 
 satisfy me. The example of my Saviour teaches me this, who did not 
 disdain to accept the one Canaanite woman." As nothing could divert 
 him from his purpose, so his fervent zeal was soon crowned with the 
 happiest results. His sermons produced more effect every day. Many 
 men and women were awakened to repentance under them, confessed 
 their sins to him, and commenced a new christian life. Usurers and 
 others pursuing unlawful gains, renounced their old wicked courses. 
 Many filled with disgust at the life of the world, withdrew from it into 
 a rigid ascetic tendency. These results of his labors stimulated him to 
 still greater activity. He preached twice every Sunday and holiday, 
 and occasionally three, four, and even five times daily, in different 
 churches ; and his sermons, which were listened to with constantly 
 increasing attention, lasted several hours. He ha'd but little time, 
 therefore, to prepare for them. He endeavored to gain strength for 
 this duty in prayer. Other learned clergymen had to complain, that 
 "with their utmost exertion, they could not accomplish what MiUtz was 
 enabled to do after an hour's preparation. On finishing the labors 
 of the day, when he returned home weary and exhausted with so 
 much preaching, he was surrounded and followed by multitudes, seek- 
 ing spiritual consolation and advice, which he imparted to all with 
 kindness and afiection. At an advanced period of his life he learned 
 German, for the purpose of extending his labors also to the German 
 population, and he now preached in this language as well as his own. 
 To the students of the university of Prague, and to the learned, he 
 preached in the Latin language, and was hstened to by eager crowds. 
 He had to lend his sermons for the students to copy ; and thus they 
 became multiplied. Matthias of Janow, his enthusiastic disciple, of 
 whom we shall speak more particularly hereafter, says of him : " Hav- 
 ing been a simple priest and secretary at the prince's court, before his 
 experience of this visitation by the spirit of Christ, he grew so rich in 
 wisdom and all utterance of doctrine, that it was a light matter to him 
 to preach five times in a day ; namely, once in Latin, once in German, 
 
 * In the biography above cited, p. 45, ^ Propter oblivionem in festis incidendis 
 it is said : Propter incongruentiam vulga- Ibid. 
 ris sermonis. 
 
176 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 and then again in the Bohemian tongue, and this publicly, with mighty 
 fervor and a powerful voice, and he constantly brought forth from his 
 treasures things new and old." ^ Great was the effect produced by 
 the preaching of Militz, on the female sex in particular ; many were 
 induced by his sermons to lay aside their ornaments of pride.2 Through 
 all Bohemia were to be found young maidens who owed to him their 
 conversion, and presented patterns of true piety in their womanly vir- 
 tues. 3 Prague was then a seat of extreme depravation of manners. 
 There was one quarter of the city devoted wholly to pleasure ; full of 
 brothels, — " Little Venice," as it was called, and, in Bohemian, 
 Benatky. Militz proposed to transform this seat of sin into a seat of 
 the christian virtues. He commenced with little beginnings, 'and end- 
 ed with great results. He succeeded at first in converting twenty 
 licentious women. He got them to dwell in one house. He found 
 devout women in good circumstances, who were willing to look after 
 them. He took unwearied pains himself in promoting their moral im- 
 provement. Some of them were married to husbands, others taken 
 into the service of pious ladies. At length he succeeded in extending 
 his labors to several hundreds. The houses of licentiousness were 
 emptied. The place which they had occupied was partly given up by 
 the emperor and the magistrates of the city to Militz, for the promo- 
 tion of his pious object, and other houses were purchased with money 
 supplied by charitable contributions. He founded here a Magdalene 
 hospital, with a chapel, in which there was preaching every day for 
 the benefit of the new converts. " Little Venice," now converted 
 into a seat of piety, obtained the name of " Little Jerusalem." We 
 see, in Militz, one of the leaders and founders of domestic missions ; 
 — an institution much needed in such an age. Matthias of Janow 
 thus describes these labors of Militz, by which Prague underwent so 
 complete a change : " 0, how many vices, conquered by him, had to 
 give up the field 1 And if Militz had not come, and so much had not 
 been accomplished by his voice thundering to the skies, we should, of 
 a truth, have been as Sodom, and perished like Gomorrah. But now, 
 by the grace of Christ, through, the energy and pains of Militz, Sodom 
 has been restored to her ancient worth ; from being a Babylon, Prague 
 is spiritually transformed, full of the word of Christ, and of the doc- 
 trine of salvation ; for now, that the abominable, the open and public 
 
 ' From a manusrript work of Matth. of candum, clamandum et laborandum ; cora- 
 
 Janow, "Dc regulis veteris ct novi tcs- muniter autem bis et ter in die festivo 
 
 tanienti:" Nam cum fuit ante simplex praedicabat ; quotidie vero sine interrup- 
 
 presbytcr et sfrij)tor in curiis principum, tione unum sermonem faciebat. 
 
 antccjuam fuit siccinc a spiritu Jcsu visita- ^ Cresccnte itaque praedicationc ejus, 
 
 tus, in tantum sapientia et omni verbo incoeperunt mnlicres superbae pepla alta, 
 
 doctrinae dives est etfectus, quod facile et «;eminis circumdata caputia, et vcsti- 
 
 erat cidcm qtiinquics in uno die pracdica- mcnta auro et arf^ento ornata dcponere. 
 
 re, puta scmcl in latino scrnione, semel in Ball)inus, 1. 1. p. 46. 
 
 teutonico, ct iterum l)oi;mico, et hoc pub- ' Matth. of Janow, in the work cited in 
 
 liceet in communicumclamore et zelo va- the ])reccdin;; note, says: Adolcscularum 
 
 lido, atque in sinf^ulis nova et vctera de autcm vir<,dnum et viduarum non crat nu- 
 
 6U0 thesauro proferendo et in magno ordi- merus, quia miro modo igne caritatis Jesu 
 
 ne, pondere et mensura, ita ut potest hinc a verbo ipsius inflammatae usque hodie 
 
 elici, quod tota dies ccdcbat sibi ad pracdi- per universam Boemiam perseveraat. 
 
MILITZ'S INTENTION TO ENTER A CONVENT. 177 
 
 vices have been conqiiercd, the christian virtues find room to bnd and 
 blossom in many souls, and increase daily both in number and vigor." i 
 The same Matthias of Janow remarks of this extraordinary man : " I 
 confess that I cannot enumerate even the tenth part of what my own 
 eyes saw, my own ears heard, and my hands handled, though I lived 
 with him but a short time." 
 
 But Militz was not so well satisfied with himself. After he had thus 
 labored for a period of from five to six years in Prague, and also in 
 several other cities within the circle of Olmutz, the sense of his own 
 unworthiness was too much for him ; he was desirous of withdrawing 
 from the office of preacher, and of consecrating himself to a still more 
 rigid life as a monk. But the advice of his friends, and their repre- 
 sentations of the bad effects which must necessarily result from the 
 sudden interruption of such active and successful labors, held him back. 
 Militz expresses his own feelings thus : " I was in the Spirit, and medi- 
 tated on what is written in the Revelation — To him that overcometh 
 will I give of the tree of life ; and I knew that if I overcame the sin 
 that is in me, I should taste of the tree of life, or of the understanding 
 of the Holy Spirit, and I prayed often, that Almighty God would give 
 me the Holy Spirit, and anoint me with his unction, that I might not 
 fall into any error, and might enjoy the taste and perfume of true wis- 
 dom, so that I might deceive none and be deceived by none, and wish 
 no longer to know anything but what is necessary for me and the holy 
 church. And soon a voice thundered in my heart, telling me how I 
 once longed to taste of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, 
 and to know more than I could know ; and although, collecting my 
 thoughts within me, I had often done penance for this, I had still not ful- 
 ly understood how blind I was, how much I needed to crucify the flesh, 
 to deny myself in my own heart, and to take upon me the cross of 
 Christ. I understand this now. Therefore the Spirit, speaking to me 
 in my heart, told me that I should begin to take up the cross, crucify 
 my flesh, forsake and deny myself, and enter upon the monastic life ; 
 that I should think meanly of myself, and not preach ; for I was not 
 yet fit for it. And I was held back from doing so by all my advisers, 
 who remonstrated against it ; but still I have, for a long time, abstained 
 from preaching." 
 
 From this confession we see that Militz, in contemplating the corrup- 
 tion of the church, was filled with the sense of his own unworthiness, 
 so as to be on the point of retiring wholly from the world ; as he actu- 
 ally did abstain, for a while, from preaching. But he must soon have felt 
 himself impelled again, by that spirit of Elias which possessed him, in- 
 stead of retiring into solitude, to stand forth and manfully contend with 
 
 ^ The words of Matth. of Janow : O lone spiritualiter facta est Praga jam uhun- 
 
 quara multa vitia et abundantia omnis ini- dans omni verbo Christi et doctrina siiluta- 
 
 quitatis abierunt retro debellata, perinde- ri, nam vitiis horrendis, praesertim publi- 
 
 que nisi Myliczius venisset, et procul du- eis, jam depugnatis et post tergum projcc- 
 
 bio suo clamore ad coelum usque efFecisset, tis, virtutes Christi Jesu in animabus jam 
 
 quod prorsus quasi Sodoma et quasi Go- pulsant caputque erigentes continue atque 
 
 morra periissemus. Ast nunc Christo Jesu quotidie invalescunt secundum numerum 
 
 propitio, virtute et labore Myliczii Sodoma et gradus, Jesu crucifixo ipsis praestante 
 
 rediit in antiquam dignitatem, et de Baby- gloriosa incrementa. 
 
178 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 the corruptions of his age. During this period of his temporary seckision 
 from the world, ^rihtz glanced from the present — as the corruption of 
 the church prompted many persons of a reformatory and presageful 
 spirit, in these times, to do — to the dawning morn of a better future. 
 In those signs of the time, set forth in the New Testament as harbin- 
 gers of Christ's advent, have often been depicted to the eyes of in- 
 spired seers the signs of some approaching new epoch for the kingdom 
 of Christ. They could cast presaging glances into the future, though 
 they failed of the exact truth in particulars, and they erred in this re- 
 spect, that, overlooking the manifold intermediate epochs which are to 
 prepare the way for the great and final crisis, they looked upon this 
 last itself as the one immediately impending. Thus Militz sought to 
 interpret the signs of the present by comparing them with the prophe- 
 cies of the Old Testament, the last discourses of Christ, and the pro- 
 phetical intimations in the epistles of St. Paul. He saw the way pre- 
 paring for a divine judgment on the corrupt church ; he foresaw a 
 renovation of the church, by which it was to be prepared for the 
 second advent of Christ. The prophetic images which presented them- 
 selves in his visions, appeared to him as revelations of the Divine Spirit. 
 From him as the source proceeded those prophetic ideas, which further 
 developed afterwards by his disciple Matthias of Janow, extended their 
 influence also to John Huss. Important in this regard is particularly 
 his tract De Anfichnsto, which has been preserved by Matthias of Ja- 
 now in his own larger work above cited. Under the " abomination of 
 desolation," (]\Iatt. xxv.) he finds signified corruption in all parts of 
 the church. The apostasy of the Jewish nation from divine truth ap- 
 pears to him an ante-type of the fall of the secularized church from 
 evangelical truth. Antichrist, he supposes, is not still to come, but has 
 come already. He says in his tract on the Antichrist : Where Christ 
 speaks of the "abomination " in the temple, he invites us to look round 
 and observe how, through the negligence of her pastors, the church lies 
 desolate ; just as, by the negligence of its pastors, the sj^nagogue 
 lay desolate. Hence if at present the church has abundance of peace 
 and superfluity of earthly riches, still it has been deprived of spiritual 
 riches, and so is fulfilled that word of prophecy, Iniquity has taken the 
 up|»er hand. Has not love grown cold ; has not iniquity taken the u\>- 
 per hand ? Therefore have they many prebends which they have ob- 
 tained by simony, or through avarice ; while many others are driven 
 thereby to beg or steal ; the poor members of Christ are deprived of 
 what belongs to them. Hence the sale and purchase of sacraments, of 
 burial-places ; hence much simony in the monastic orders ; hence pri- 
 vate possessions in the hands of those who have renounced riches. 
 Are not these abominations and idols ? And thus the temple of God 
 lies desolate, through the hypocrisy that reigns almost universally ; so 
 that the priests are one thing, but would be called another. The 
 monks hear confessions indiscriminately, without obtaining leave from 
 the diocesan authorities. He next surveys the corruption in all ranks 
 of society, in kings, princes, noblemen, merchants, artisans, peasantry ; 
 notices how debauchery, luxury, perversion of justice, oppression of 
 
THE " DE ANTICIIRISTO '* OF MILITZ. 179 
 
 the poor, every description of vice, abounded ; how more faith -was 
 given to the conjuror's art than to the gospel. ^' When I considered all 
 this — he says — I said to the Spirit, which spake within me, Who is 
 Antichrist? And he answered, There are many Antichrists. lie who 
 denies Christ, and the authority of Christ, is an Antichrist. And as 
 many who say they know him, deny him by their works, while otliers 
 deny him by keeping still and not daring to confess him and the truth 
 of his cause before men ; conclude from this who is Antichrist." The 
 appearance of Antichrist being, in the opinion of Militz, not a thing still 
 in the future, but already present, it was his opinion also that the an- 
 gels, whom Christ was to send forth before the last judgment, to gather 
 up the tares and to sound the trumpet of judgment, symbolized the 
 preachers of divine truth, who were to be sent out, before the second 
 advent of Christ, into all quarters, to attack and destroy the reign of 
 Antichrist and to testify of Christ. When Militz strove to supriress 
 these thoughts concerning the last times, as temptations, he found they 
 Avere too mighty for him. He was forced to give up to them. lie 
 felt himself called to inform Pope Urban V. of the visions which rose 
 in his mind, and to use them in warning and admonishing that pope. 
 He must go — for such he supposed was the voice of the Spirit — and 
 tell the pope that he had been called, by the Holy Ghost, to the duty 
 of bringing back the church to the way of salvation, the duty of send- 
 ing forth the angels or preachers, with the trumpets of the message 
 and loud voices, that they might remove those scandals from the field 
 of God or from the church ; and as the harvest, or the end of the 
 world drew near, that he should now root up the tares, the heretics, 
 false prophets, hypocrites, Beghards and Beguins,i and schismatics, 
 ■who were all designated by the names Gog and Magog ; that then the 
 fulness of the Gentiles would enter into the kingdom of God, and the 
 true Israel alone be left standing ; and thus all would be one shepherd 
 and one fold, and bound together by such cords of love — if not all, yet 
 many — that all things would be held in common, as the Holy Ghost 
 should direct. Accordingly he must advise the pope to call a general 
 council, at which all the bishops might unite in some plan for the refor- 
 mation of the communities entrusted to their charge, and for the resto- 
 ration of good discipline. Monks and secular priests should be ex- 
 horted to go forth as preachers ; for many of them wasted away their 
 lives in idleness, when they might be active in labors, and strong in 
 dispensing the word. The pope was to make arrangements for a gene- 
 ral crusade, i. e. a peaceful crusade of men preaching the Lord and 
 fighting for him, prepared to die — to sufter for Christ — rather than 
 to kill.'^ These should overcome the beast (of the Apocalypse) or 
 
 * It will be remembered that this name, dominum praedicantibus et pugnantibus 
 
 since the times of the I3th century, was phis mori quam occidere, pati pro Christo. 
 
 variously used, sometimes in a good and Militz's language is somewhat obscure, as 
 
 sometimes in a bad sense, to denote truly it is in the wliole of this writing. It may 
 
 devout, also fanatical and hypocritical ten- be understood to mean, that the sending 
 
 dcncies, and even such as proceeded from forth of preaciiers was to be distinguished 
 
 a wildly enthusiastic pantheism. from a proper crusade. But it hardly cor- 
 
 '^ liinc faciat passagium generale, aliis responds with tlie spirit of Militz to sup- 
 
180 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 Antichrist, by tbe blood of the Lamb, and build a safe highway to the 
 land of eternal promise. Not a crusade, therefore, for the opening a 
 way to the Jerusalem on earth, but a spiritual crusade, which, by the 
 triumphant diffusion of the word of Christ, should make the heavenly 
 Jerusalem accessible to all, was what Militz had in mind. He beholds, 
 in spirit, how many martyrs would die for the truth, and by the blood 
 of these martyrs the sins of the Christian people should be expiated. 
 *' "Were these to be silent — savs he — the very stones would cry out.'* 
 Militz, in the year 13G7, felt himself called to go to Rome ; and took 
 ■with him, as companions, Theodoric a monk, and one of his disciples of the 
 ecclesiastical order. He went to Rome either because he hoped to find 
 Pope Urban V. already there, (the report that Urban intended to trans- 
 fer the seat of the papacy back to that city, having perhaps already 
 reached Prague,) or because he thought it his duty to testify, first of 
 all, in the ancient seat of the papacy and the chief city of Christendom, 
 concerning the revelation of Antichrist and the preparation for Christ's 
 second coming. He had resided in Rome a month, preparing himself, 
 by study of the Scriptures, prayer, and fasting, for the work to which 
 he felt himself called. The pope, however, did not make his appear- 
 ance ; his return to Rome was still delayed, and Militz could no longer 
 keep silent. He caused a notification to be posted up at the entrance 
 of St. Peter's church, that on a certain dav he would there make his 
 public appearance and address the assembled multitude ; that he would 
 announce the coming of Antichrist and exhort the people to pray for the 
 pope and the emperor, that they might be enabled so to order the af- 
 fairs of the church, in things spiritual and temporal, that the faithful 
 might securely serve their Creator.* He proposed, moreover, to re- 
 duce his sennon to writing, that his language might not be misconstrued 
 and represented as heretical, and that what he spoke might be more 
 widely published abroad. 2 But a notice of this sort could not fail to 
 excite suspicion, and Militz had already, by his castigatory sermons, 
 drawn down upon himself the hatred of the mendicant monks in Prague ; 
 he was therefore waylaid and apprehended, and the inquisitor, who be- 
 longed to the Dominican order, placed him under arrest. He was to 
 be called before the tribunal. His companion Theodoric was shut up 
 in a Dominican convent. Militz, loaded with chains, was delivered 
 over to the Franciscans, to be kept in close confinement. He showed 
 the greatest patience and gentleness under his sufferings ; not a word 
 
 pose he meant that infidels were to be at- praedicare, quod antichristus venit, et co- 
 tacked by force of arms. The import of hortari cos velles et populum, ut orent 
 the whole seems rather to be that the cru- pro domino nostro papa et pro domino 
 sade was not to be one in the literal sense, imperatore, ut ita ordiiient ecclesiam sanc- 
 but the Of)positc — a spiritual crusade. tarn in spiritualibus et temporalibus, ut 
 ' Militx himself rci)orts tliis in his pa- securi tldoles deserviant creatori. It is 
 per on the Antichrist ; YA tunc jam de- evident that the author of the biojrraphi- 
 sperassem de adventu domini nostri pa- cal sketch of Militz, published by Balbin, 
 pae, . . . et tunc inniit in me spiritus, ita had this ])aper before him, and that his 
 ut mecontincrc non possem,dicens in cor- account is founded on it. 
 de, vade in lioma, publice pcrtracta, qua ^ Militz expresses himself as follows : 
 quomodo affli;;etur liostis ecclcsiae S. Pe- Et dabis in scriptis sermonem ilium, ne 
 tri. sic soUicitus fuisti intimare in Tra^a, imnmtent verba tua, et ut matei-ia' divol- 
 quoniam eris praedicaturus, quod velis getur. 
 
RETURN OF MILITZ TO PRAGUE. 181 
 
 of revenge escaped his lips ; his meek forbearance confounded his per- 
 secutors. His companion Theodoric found it more difficult to suppress 
 his indignation at such unjust treatment ; but Mihtz admonished him 
 to think on the sufferings of Christ, who was led as a lamb to the 
 slaughter, and opened not his mouth. A devout woman in Rome chari- 
 tably undertook to provide for their wants ; but Militz was greatly 
 pained when he came to be informed that she sent better food to him 
 than to his companion Theodoric. After having been long detained in 
 close confinement, he was asked, what it had been his intention to 
 preach. He requested his examiners to give him the Bible, which had 
 been taken from him at the time of his arrest, with paper, pen, and ink, 
 and he would put his discourse in writing. This was granted, and his 
 fetters were removed. Before a large assembly of prelates and learned 
 men, in the church of St. Peter, he delivered a discourse in Latin, 
 which produced a great impression. He was then conducted back to 
 his prison, but treated with less severity. It was in his cell that he 
 afterwards composed his above-mentioned work " On the Antichrist,'* 
 as appears from his own words : " The author writes this, a prisoner 
 and in chains, troubled in spirit, longing for the freedom of Christ's 
 church, longing that Christ would speak the word. Let it be, and it 
 shall be ; and protesting that he has not kept back that which was in 
 his heart, but has spoken it out to the church, and that he is prepared 
 to hold fast to whatever the pope or the church may lay on him." 
 But no sooner had Pope Urban arrived at Rome, than the situation of 
 Militz was altered for the better. He was set free from prison and 
 received into the palace of a cardinal ; he had a favorable audience 
 with the pope, and returned back to Prague to the great joy of his 
 community. The exultation at his return was the greater, because his 
 enemies, the mendicants, had foretold to the people from the pulpit, that 
 he would perish at the stake. 
 
 He recommenced with new zeal his labors in Prague. He was not 
 satisfied with the little good that could be effected by his own personal 
 labors in preaching. He was often heard to say : " Would that all 
 were prophets." He set up a school for preachers. And when he 
 had trained up an able young priest, he took pains himself to draw 
 upon him the attention of the communities, pointing him out as one 
 who would surpass his master, as one whom they should listen to with 
 care. He founded an association composed of two or three hundred 
 young men, all of whom resided under the same roof with himself, 
 were trained under his influence, and by his society. He copied the 
 books which they were to study, and gave them devotional books to 
 copy themselves, for the sake of multiplying them. All here was to be 
 free ; to flow spontaneously from the one animating spirit by which all 
 were to be governed. An internal tie was all that held them together ; 
 no outward discipline or rule, no vow, no uniformity of dress. The 
 disciples of Militz soon distinguished themselves by their serious, spirit- 
 ual lives, and by their styb of preaching. Hence they too, like him- 
 self, were made butts of ridicule and persecution by the worldly-minded 
 clergy, whom the lives of these exemplary young men stung with shame 
 
 VOL. V. 16 
 
182 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRIXE. 
 
 and reproach. Tliey were nick-named Militzans, Beghards. The bene- 
 ficence of Militz was without bounds. Crowds of the poor were always 
 to be seen collected before his doors. lie gave all he had to help 
 them ; reserving nothing at all for himself; so that when everything 
 else was gone, he sold his books, the very books which he used himself, 
 and which he kept ready to lend to any that needed.^ When he had 
 nothing more he ran round among other clergymen and the rich, and 
 collected contributions,^ never allowing himself to lose heart by any rude 
 rebuff he might chance to receive from those whose charities he asked. 
 Nothing was left him but the most indispensable articles of clothing ; 
 not even what was needful to protect him, in midwinter, from the 
 inclemency of the season. A rich man had said : Militz suffered so 
 much from the cold, he would be glad to present him with a set of 
 furs if he could only be sure that he would keep it. On hearing of 
 it, Militz observed : He was far from wishing to keep anything for 
 himself alone ; on that condition he could not accept of the furs. He 
 was often persecuted and stigmatized as a heretic ; but his patience 
 and gentleness never failed him for a moment ; and he used to say : 
 " Let me suffer ever so much persecution, when I bethink me of the 
 fervent penitence of that poor woman — referring to one who had been 
 converted by his means from a life of licentiousness and crime — the 
 bitterest cup becomes sweet to me, for all /suffer is as nothing com- 
 pared to the grief of that one woman." 
 
 The enemies of Militz at length extracted from his sermons twelve 
 articles, which they sent to a certain Master Klonkot, an agent of 
 theirs, probably himself a Bohemian, who happened to be present at 
 the papal court in Avignon. It is very manifest how wide an influ- 
 ence Militz must have already gained by means of his school. The 
 pope saw clearly that such doctrines would be disseminated through 
 Bohemia, Poland, and Silesia. He put forth several bulls to the arch- 
 bishop of Gnesen, the bishop of Breslau, the archbishop of Prague, 
 and to the Emperor Charles IV. He expressed his surprise to the 
 bishops that they should have tolerated until now the spread of such 
 heretical, schismatic doctrines through so wide a circle ; called upon 
 them to suppress the same, and bring Militz and his adherents to pun- 
 ishment. Yet even Gregory XI. must assuredly have been still some- 
 what uncertain himself whether wrong had not been done to Militz ; 
 for he uses the qualifying expressions, — " if it is so" — " if you find 
 that it is so." 3 In the bull addressed to the Emperor Charles, he 
 says : " We have recently learned from the report of several credible 
 persons, that a certain priest Militz, formerly a canonical at Prague, 
 under the garb of sanctity, but in the spirit of temerity and selfcon- 
 ceit, has taken upon himself the calling to preach which does not 
 belong to him, and has dared to teach openly in your dominions many 
 
 ' Propter quod dum omnibus libris, words just cited : Tunc mutuando a divi- 
 
 quos solos pro docendo habuerat, ct pau- tihus et ro^ando non sine magnis contu- 
 
 cos obligavit, vendidit ct expendit, are tlie meliis et repulsa discurrendo. 
 
 words of Mattli. of Janow. ^ Annales Raynaldi, torn. VII, 1374, ad 
 
 ' Matth. of Janow remarks, after the ann. Nr. 10 and 11, p. 251. 
 
DEATH OF MILITZ. — CONRAD OF WALDIIAUSEN. 183 
 
 errors, which are not only bad and rash, but also heretical and schis- 
 matic, extremely mischievous and dangerous to the faithful, especially 
 the simple. When the pope's bull arrived at Prague, the arch- 
 bishop was confounded. He caused Militz to be cited, and complained 
 to him of his perplexity. Militz, however, remained perfectly tranquil 
 in the consciousness of his innocence, and bid the arch1)ishop take 
 courage, as his conscience was clear. He placed his trust in God and 
 the power of the truth ; these would triumph over every assault. He 
 went to Avignon in the year 1374 ; but died there while his cause was 
 still pending.^ 
 
 In connection with Militz we should notice Conrad of Waldhausen,2 a 
 German from Austria, who was distinguished in Bohemia as a preacher 
 full of zeal for reform.^ He belonged to the order of St. Augustin, and 
 exerted a great influence, at first as a priest, by his sermons, in Vien- 
 na, from the year 1345 and onward, through a period of fifteen years.* 
 "VVithin this period fell the jubilee already mentioned as having been 
 proclaimed hy Pope Clement VI. While an opportunity of this sort 
 would be seized upon by the common preachers of indulgence to do 
 still greater mischief to the souls of men, Conrad of Waldhausen would 
 feel himself called upon the more to wake up the attention of the 
 misguided people as a preacher of repentance. Without contending 
 asfainst the determinations of that church doctrine, to which he him- 
 self was devoted, he might still endeavor to counteract the perni- 
 cious influence of the ordinary preachers of indulgences, and to direct 
 
 • We follow here the report of Matth. the corrupt clergy, the Cistercian John of 
 of Janow, as the one most worthy of ere- Stekna, when the friends of Huss, for ex- 
 dence, who says of Militz : Avenione ex- ample, said in his justification, that he 
 ulans est mortuus. It must be an error, was persecuted merely on account of his 
 ■when it is said, in the biography published castigatory discourses against the corrupt 
 by Balbinus, that he went to Rome. This clergy, this Andrew of Broda replied, by 
 error might easily arise from the confound- appealing to the examples of those three 
 ing together of the curia Romana and the castigatory preachers before him, Militz, 
 curia Avenionensis. It must also be a mis- the above mentioned Conrad, and Jolinof 
 take that, as the report in Balbin has it, Stekna, who, however, had not been accu- 
 Militz returned back, to Prague and died sed of heresy ; and he says in this con- 
 there. We might suggest the inquiry, ncction : Nam et ab antiquis temporibus 
 whether, in the biography preserved in Milicius, Conradus, Sczekna et alii caet. 
 Balbin, a report got up in the lifetime of The simple fact, tliat the two last names 
 Militz, and another composed after his were not separated from each other by a 
 death, may not be blended together. comma, led to the entire mistake. 
 
 ^ This Conrad of Waldhausen first be- ^ Matth. of Janow characterizes both 
 came better known through the research- Militz and Conrad of Waldhausen as men 
 es of Palacky, to whom I am indebted full of the spirit of Elijah. He says : Con- 
 for the first oral communications respect- radus Walthauser, homo utique religiosus 
 ing him, (see his History of Bohemia, 3, et devotus, qui dictis suis et scriptis prin- 
 1, 161 tf, and note 22.5) and through those cipales metropoles sanctae ecclesiae reple- 
 of P. Jordan in his paper, " Die Vorlaiifer verunt utpote Romam et Avenionem, ubi 
 des Hussitenthums in Bohmen," which Papa, et Bohemiam atque Pragam, ubi 
 learned man may also have availed him- ecclesiae imperatoris. Unus ipsorum Con- 
 self of Palacky's researches. An errone- radus in Praga occubuit, ubi Caesar, caet. 
 ously printed passage in Cochlaeus (his- "* We take this from a remark made by 
 toriae liussitarum libri XII., p. 42.) taken the man himself in his piece in defence 
 from the writing ofa contemporary of Huss, of himself, composed in 1364, and still un- 
 the Bohemian theologian Andrew of Bro- published : Jam per quindecim aniios la- 
 da. who wrote against Huss, caused this boriosae coram ducibus Austriae coramque 
 forerunner of Huss to be forgotten and to populo multo palam coneione caet. 
 be confounded with another castigator of 
 
184 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 men's attention to the internal moral conditions Tvhich 'were required 
 m order to derive any true benefit from indulgences. It seems, that 
 he was led hy this occasion of the jubilee to make the pilgrimage him- 
 self to Rome, and, that on this journey and after his return from it, he 
 labored as a preacher of repentance in Austria and Bohemia till he 
 arrived at Prague. We take this from his own writings. For when, 
 at some later period, his violent enemies of the two orders of mendicant 
 friars accused him of disturbing everywhere by his sermons the public 
 peace, — a charge often brought a";ainst preachers who bv their search- 
 mg discourses produced some movement which was opposed to the 
 selfish interests of many, — he in defending himself compares this 
 accusation with the one brought against Christ, namely, that he stirred 
 up the people ; that he taught from city to city, in the whole land of 
 Judea, beginning from Galilee even unto Jerusalem ; where he re- 
 marks, — and so they say of me : He has set the people in commotion, 
 beginning — and, herein, at least, they speak the truth — beginning from 
 Rome, the seat of the apostolical chair, in the year of the jubilee, and 
 teaching through all Austria even to this city of Prague, from this 
 time, by God's wonderful dealing, become an imperial city.^ This 
 happened, therefore, in the year 1350. By these labors he must have 
 become known to the king of Bohemia, the Emperor Charles IV., who 
 sought in every way to advance the interests of the Bohemian people. 
 The emperor endeavored to secure him for this country, and, in the 
 year 1360, he was called, as parish priest, to the city of Leitmeritz. 
 Partly his earnest wish to labor on a wider scale for the salvation of 
 souls and against the corruption of these times, an opportunity for which 
 was offered to him in Prague, and partly a controversy in which he 
 became involved with a convent of Dominicans and Franciscans, who 
 sought to circumscribe the -activity of the parish priest and to take 
 everything into their own hands, induced him to make his appearance 
 as a preacher in Prague .2 He preached, first, for a year, in the church 
 of St. Galli, in Prague.s But the crowd of people who were impressed 
 by his preaching, constantly increased ; and, as he thought it wrong to 
 withhold God's word from any one who was drawn to hear it, but felt 
 bound to labor for the salvation of as many as he could, he preached, 
 the church being no longer large enough for his audience, in the open 
 market-place to the vast crowds who there assembled around him. 
 He also, like Militz, supposed that he saw in the an ti- christian spirit 
 
 ' Commovit popuhim doccns per uni- stulissent sibi populum suum, et sibi at- 
 
 versam Austrium, iricipiens, ut vcriim sal- traxissent. And lie ;:rant!< that tliis was 
 
 tern in hoc dicant, a Hoinana civitate se- one reason, but not the only one. nor the 
 
 dis apostolicac, anno Jubilaeo docens per chief one. Respondeo, quod ista omnia 
 
 universam Austriam u«;(|uc banc soil, in sunt vera, practer hoc, quod dixerunt, e>;se 
 
 Prafram, ex tunc mirabiliterdci dispensatu hoc praecipuam causam sed tantum fuit 
 
 civitatem imperialem. concausa, 
 
 ' Conrad's opponents alleprc. ns the rea- ^ His own words are: Ejxo Conradus 
 
 son why he left his parish, what he him- in Waldhausen professus ordinem S. Au- 
 
 self stated: (Scripscrunt, me dixissc in j;ustini canonicorum rcj^ularium et Lotho- 
 
 quodam sermone, causam, quare in paro- mir Pragcnsis dioeceseos Plebanus verbura 
 
 chia mea non residerem, esse.) quia ipsam dei in civitate Praj2:ensi quasi per annum 
 
 duo mona^teria fratrum mendicantium at- continuum pracdicassera in ecclesia S. 
 
 tenuassent ibidem, et esset ratio, quia ab- Galli. 
 
CONRAD OP WALDHAUSEN. 185 
 
 of his times, the signs of the last preparatory epoch which was to 
 precede the second advent of Christ ; and his sermons were frequently 
 taken up in directing the attention of his hearers to these signs, in 
 warning them against the impending dangers, exhorting them to watch- 
 fulness over themselves and against the insidious spread of antichrist- 
 ian corruption. "Not wilHng — says he — that the blood of souls 
 should be required at my hands, I traced, as I was able, in the Holy 
 Scripture, the future dangers impending over the souls of men." i 
 Accordingly he attacked, in his sermons, the prevailing vices in all 
 •ranks of society, tlic pride of dress in the women ; usury ; lightness, 
 and vanity in the youth. Many, under the influence of his preaching, 
 experienced an entire change of heart. He produced such an effect 
 on many usurers that they restored back their wrongful gains ; this he 
 required them to do, as evidence of their conversion. A certain young 
 man, by the name of Slanko, was looked upon as one of the most 
 remarkable examples of his singular power in reaching the souls of 
 men. This person took the lead among the giddy, light-minded youth, 
 given up to every vanity. Without any purpose of devotion he visited 
 the churches, where he amused himself with looking round upon the 
 young ladies, nodding to them, and throwing pebbles at them, even 
 during the fasts ; and so he went on during all the first part of the 
 time that Conrad was preaching at Prague. But, struck by some 
 remark of the preacher, he changed his whole course of life, became 
 one of his most attentive and devout hearers, to be found always by 
 his side ; and Conrad often alluded to the change that had taken place 
 in him, as evidence of the power of transforming grace.^ 
 
 Even the Jews often went to hear him preach. Some of his friends 
 would have prevented this ; but Conrad, who was zealous for the salva- 
 tion of all human souls, and could not approve of this exclusion of the 
 Jews, reminded his friends that, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, their 
 conversion in great numbers was some time or other to be expected. 
 They ought never to doubt of the power of the gospel and of divine 
 grace. He would pleasantly remark that " if it was in the power of 
 divine grace to change the worldly heart of a Slanko, why might it not 
 also overcome the unbelief of the Jews." 3 He thus speaks of the 
 matter himself : " It so happened that many Jews, of both sexes, at- 
 tended my preaching, sitting and standing promiscuously in the crowd 
 among the Christians ; and it was told me that a number of Christians 
 supposed that the Jews must be avoided, and wished to prevent them 
 from attending my preaching for the future. I then said : I have 
 
 * Nolens sanguinem animarum de man- inquietus ; postea fuit conversus cum niul- 
 
 ibus meis requiri, equidem in scripturis tis aliis coraplicibus suis ejusdem vanita- 
 
 sanctis vidi tidelius, ut potui, pericula an- tis, quod valde devote mecura sedebat iu 
 
 imarum futura. quadragesima ad sermonem. 
 
 2 Conrad says of him : Ille fuerat valde ^ xhe words of Conrad : De hoc juvene 
 
 indisciplinatus ante adventum meum in jocose dixi, arguens per locum a minori, 
 
 Pragam. Ita quando civissae, quibus ho- sciens quod non aegre ferret, et quia bonus 
 
 nisabat, vel quaecunque aliae sedebant in amicus mens esset, et de hoc gaudebat : 
 
 quadragesima in praedicatione, jaciebat Ex quo conversus est ille, posset etiam 
 
 super earum capillos. Etiam in principio Judaeus converti. 
 adventus mei in Pragam fuit aliquamdiu 
 
 16* 
 
186 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 heard that some of you have been keeping away the Jews, who were 
 attentive hearers, from mv sermons. I besr vou not to do this a";ain ; 
 for the hist day is approaching, before which, according to Isaiah, all 
 the Jews are to be converted. Peradventure some one of these may, 
 by the grace of God, be converted." And to show that this was by no 
 means impossible, he cites the example of Slanko. 
 
 In pointing beyond a mere outside Christianity to its true essence, 
 in exposing the various ways in which men deceived themselves with 
 re<rard to the demands of Christianitv, the various means resorted to 
 for the purpose of hushing the alarms of conscience, and bolstering up 
 a life of immorality, he was led to contend earnestly against the influ- 
 ence of the mendicant friars, who by their mock-sanctity imposed on 
 the multitude, while they encouraged and promoted the false reliance 
 in various outward works ; and in warning men against the false 
 prophets who were to appear in the last times, he felt compelled to 
 draw his illustrations chieflv from the mendicants. He snoke with ^rreat 
 emphasis against every species of simony, but especially against that 
 form of it which was stealthily practised under the garb of absolute 
 poverty by the begging-monks. Simony he pronounced to be heresy. 
 There was, as he thought, a still worse heresy than that of the Pneu- 
 matojnachi, who declared the Holy Ghost to be a mere creature ; 
 namely when, by simony, the Holy Ghost was employed as a means 
 of getting money. The former only made the Holy Ghost a ministrant 
 creature to God the Father ; but they who practised simony made the 
 Holy Ghost their own spirit, their own minister.^ He regarded it as 
 no better than simony, to ask pay for taking in and nursing the sick, 
 and to decline receiving young women or 3'oung men into the convents 
 except for a certain stipulated sum. He had applied at first to Ernest, 
 archbishop of Prague, and requested him to put a stop to this simony. 
 Eut this prelate assured him that it was out of his power ; most of the 
 convents being exempted from his jurisdiction, and under the control 
 of priors of the mendicant order.a No other course remained for him, 
 therefore, but to lift up his voice against the evil, in his sermons and 
 in his intercourse with men. He inveighed against the mock-sanctity 
 of the monks, who endeavored to deceive the simple to the great injury 
 of their souls ; and through weak-minded, bigoted females in particu- 
 lar, introduced their corrupting influence into families, procured lega- 
 cies to be made to their order, and its superior holiness to be com- 
 mended, so as to induce parents to give up to them their boys. 
 "These persons — he says — often deceive the simple, by pretending 
 to a holy poverty, putting on the garb of an hypocritical sanctity ; and 
 whilst, for outside show, they carry that devotion on their lips, which is 
 not, I fear, in their hearts, they rob those who^ confess to them of what 
 
 ' Illi enim Maccdoninni crcaturam et archicpiscopo Pragcnsi id ipsum sig:nifica- 
 
 scrvum dei patris et filii spiritum sane- re, quod talibus. ne rierent, remodium ad- 
 
 tum delirando fatehantur. Isti vero eun- hiberct opportumiin. Qui rcspondit, quod 
 
 dem spiritum sanctum eftiriunt sintm monasteria monialium fere omnia essent 
 
 servum, quia divenduut ipsum quasi ad- ab ejus cura in civitate Prajrensi cxcmpta, 
 
 versarii. sed sub alis tVatrum ordinum mendicaa- 
 
 ' This Conrad relates himself : Domino tiura, ut communiier essent. 
 
CONRAD OP WALDHAUSEN. 187 
 
 belongs rightfully, ^vhon they have done with it, to their heirs. But 
 let these simple "persons hear wliat our Lord threatens to such, in his 
 parables (Matt. 23: 23)." ^ N'o man, he held, could be forced to be 
 virtuous. All goodness must proceed from free choice and conviction. 
 Hence he objected to the practice, customary with parents, of carrying 
 their children to the convents, where they were to be put under a perpet- 
 ual vow to the monastic life, though it was quite uncertain whether they 
 would be fitted for it or willing to undertake it on arriving at mature 
 years. " They only — he said — who are led by the Spirit of God, 
 are the sons o'f God. That which the Spirit only can effect, is not to 
 be forcibly imposed upon one from without." We recognize,^ in all 
 this, the Augustinian ; one on whom the doctrines of Augustin had 
 exerted a great and decided influence. He himself remarks, in clear- 
 ing himself from the reproaches which were thrown on him for using 
 such expressions : " Because I was informed that the people of Prague 
 had been persuaded by those monks to vow the consecration to their 
 orders of boys still in the mother's wpmb, and to give them the names 
 of the saints of those orders, I spoke publicly against such a practice, 
 except on the express condition that their children should be held to 
 such vows only in case they met with their own concurrence when 
 they came of age. 2 For otherwise it would inevitably be attended 
 with danger to the souls of both children and parents." Therefore 
 he held parents responsible for the injury which might accrue to their 
 children, if such a mode of life was forced upon them contrary to their 
 own wishes. He had nothing to say against the monastic life, in itself 
 considered. But he made a distinction between this life and the 
 strange offshoots from it, against which he felt it the more incumbent 
 on him to warn men, in proportion to the high regard which he enter- 
 tained for the institution. Referring to the remarks of Augustin, he 
 declared, that while in monasticism, if it corresponded to its idea, was 
 to be found the most perfect mode of Christian life ; so in it, when de- 
 generated, was also to be found the greatest wickedness. Refusing to 
 retract what he had said on this point, but rather confirming it, he 
 wrote : " I say and write what I never wrote, or said from the pulpit, 
 before, moved to do this now by such an unwarranted contradiction, 
 that he who has a son or friend whom he loves, and whose welfare he 
 holds dear, should no more allow him to enter into one of these orders, 
 — in which manifestly, and as it were by authority, owing to the cor- 
 rupt influence of a bad custom, it has become necessary to live con- 
 trary to the rule of the orders and to the profession — than he who 
 wants to cross the Danube, should voluntarily embark in a leaky craft, 
 
 ' Immo tales creberrime praetextu suae diebam per praedictos fratres, ut pueri 
 sanctae paupertatis et habitu simulatae adhuc in ventris matrum existentes sui3 
 sanctitatis simplices decipientes et eorum ordinibus voverent, procurari et nomina 
 devotionibus, ore, sed ut timeo, non cor- sanctorum vel sanctarum sui ordinis no- 
 de ostensis, contitentes, privant bonis suis, minari, quae ne fierent ut potui publice 
 quibus post mortem deberent vivere hae- prohibui, nisi si hoc pacto sui primum 
 redes coram. Sed audiant, quid dominus voluissent hoc votum, cum ad annos dis- 
 talibus in figura similitudinis comminetur. cretionis pervenerit, suo libero arbitrio 
 
 Quia homines civitatis Pragensis au- ratificare. 
 
188 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 thereby exposing his life to danger."' And after quoting certain re- 
 marks of St. Bernard, referring to the degeneracy of the monks, he 
 adds : " But I say, St. Bernard, what would thy language be now, 
 didst thou behold the mendicant friars sitting in those splendid palaces, 
 which they own in spite of the apostolical prohibition ! " It w^ere bet- 
 ter, he thinks, only for the sake of escaping corruption and securing 
 salvation, to remain in the world ; for, as well in the monastic life as 
 in the world. Pure worship and undefiled before God and the Father is 
 this : to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep 
 one's self unspotted from the world. To the monks, who trusted in the 
 holiness of their order, he applied what John the Baptist had said in 
 rebuking the theocratical pride of the Jews, — that God was able, out of 
 these stones, to raise up children to Abraham. " No monk — says he — is 
 entitled to hope that he shall be saved because the founder of his order 
 was a holy man ; it would be precisely the same as if I should hope 
 in St. Augustin, and expect to be made blessed by his holiness without 
 any good works of my own." " I believe — says he — that if St. Fran- 
 cis himself should find fault with them for their wickedness, he must 
 prove, according to their own professions, to be a bad man, and they 
 would never acknowledge him as the founder of their order ; so very 
 far, alas ! have they departed from the purity of their foundation, and 
 from their original poverty. He distinguishes, indeed, the primitive 
 mode of living among the mendicants, as laid down by their rule, from 
 that which contradicted it ; yet it is very evident, that he was very far 
 from rci^ardinir the institution of the mendicant orders, in itself consid- 
 ered, as the highest degree of the imitation of Christ. On the contrary, 
 he disputes the position, that such poverty corresponded to the original 
 type of the hfe of Christ. He affirms that Christ never begged. la 
 proof of this, he states that when Christ paid the tribute for himself and 
 for Peter, he did not beg it, but caused it to be found in the mouth of 
 the fish ; that Christ was styled not the carpenter's son merely, but 
 the carpenter ; explaining the words, " Is not this the carpenter's son? " 
 as if the people had said. We have not seen him studying, but at work 
 with his father the carpenter. He offered to give sixty groats to any 
 one who could cite a single passage from the New Testament, showing 
 that Christ had ever begged. 2 He himself repented, as it would seem, 
 of his earlier mode of lite, which his order had imposed ; for he says : 
 " 0, had I but known it ten years ago, I would then, for the glory of 
 God, have devoted myself entirely to study ; but from henceforth I 
 will consecrate my whole hfe to study, to the cultivation of a prayerful 
 
 ' Dico et scribo, quod prius nunquam nullus volcns Danu])ium transirc, sponte 
 
 scripsi vol dixi in anil)onc, tali contra- intraret navem corruptam, ubi tamen esset 
 
 dictione indcbita motus, quod (luilihct ha- in periculo corpus. 
 
 bens puemm vel amicuni dili<rt'ns, <iucm ^ Dixi, quod cjuicunque ex iis fuerit pri- 
 
 velit salvari, vidcat, no in aliijuem ordi- mus, qui ostendcrit mihi ex scriptura ca- 
 
 nem ipsos intrarc procuret, in quo mani- nonica, Christum mendicasse, cujus ratio- 
 
 feste et quasi jam ex auctoritate propter nes solvere non ])ossim, dal)o si hi unam 
 
 corruptelam pravae consuetudinis sit ne- sexagenariam grossorum pro cappa panni 
 
 cesse vivcre contra regulam ejusdem or- rudis. 
 dinis ct professionem, attendcns, quod 
 
CONRAD OF WALDHAUSEN. 189 
 
 spirit and to preaching];.'* lie contests the notion, that it was a pecu- 
 liarly holy and meritorious work to give alms to the monks, instead of 
 providing for the support of the truly necessitous poor. " 0, — he 
 writes — what will the Lord say, in that day of fearful judgment, to 
 those who, when they were not needy themselves, snatched away their 
 alms from the truly poor, the real beggars. Assuredly will it be in 
 his power to say — I was hungry, and ye gave me no meat : ye took 
 away from me, what was to serve as my food. Much rather — said 
 he — should we give to the poor and to the true beggars, than to a 
 rich and strong man, who begs while he might work. And I believe — 
 he proceeds — all men of sound understanding would agree with me in 
 this ; though not an individual would say that we are bound to give to 
 the riah man, rather than to the poor Lazarus ; that we should give 
 to those that riot at feasts, and leave to die, of hunger, the poor beg- 
 gars who seek to feed themselves with the crumbs that fall from the 
 table." He bore his testimony against the fraudful quackery carried 
 on with pretended relics of saints. " The people — said he — often 
 allow themselves to be imposed upon with relics. A head of St. Bar- 
 bara, it was reported, existed somewhere in Prussia ; and yet many 
 held that they had such a head in Prague." And he adds, in confir- 
 mation : " So true is it, that they often love the perishable bodies of 
 saints more than their meritorious works for the sake of the kinoidom 
 of heaven ; when the truth is that the saints do not make holiness, but 
 holiness made the saints ; therefore holiness should not be loved less 
 than the saints." ^ He applies to them what Christ says of the Phari- 
 sees, who garnished the sepulchres of the murdered prophets, while in 
 heart they resembled their murderers. The reason why they honored 
 the tombs of the prophets, Christ tells them, was that they found it a 
 source of gain. They deceived the simple by this show of reHgion.2 
 While Conrad prevailed on the usurers, who were converted under his 
 sermons, to prove the sincerity of their repentance by returning the 
 gains they had made from unlawful interest, to those whom they had 
 robbed, directly contrary to this was the practice of the mendicants, 
 who tranquillized the consciences of usurers, by inspiring in them a 
 false confidence in absolution, because they ministered to their avarice. 
 He could lay it to their charge, that they had absolved from all his 
 sins, and buried with ceremonious pomp, a usurer who had never re- 
 stored back his unlawful gains, though he had made a large donation to 
 them.3 He reproaches them with the folly of celebrating mass for him 
 whose soul might, in all probability, be with that of the rich man in hell.4 
 He says of the mendicants : " We may see those who would be pillars 
 
 ' Quod sicut verum est, quod saepe plus ^ Conrad's words : Ipsum, postposita 
 
 diligunt pereuntia sanctorum corpora, omnium conscientia, in ecclesia sua abso- 
 
 quam imitentur et diligantur propter coe- lutum suo decreto ab omnibus peccatis suis, 
 
 leste regnum ipsorum merita, cum tamen gloriose et cum magna processione fratrum 
 
 sancti non fecerint sanctitatem, sed sancti- altisone cantando per f ontem apportatum 
 
 tas sanctos. Unde sanctitas non minus sepelissent. 
 
 quam sancti esset diligenda. •* Non attendentes, quod anima illius 
 
 ^ Quia sepulcra prophetarum pecuniam cum divite epulone fuisset in inferno se- 
 
 iis solvebant, simplices per hujusmodi spe- pulta. 
 ciem religionis decipiebant. 
 
190 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 of the church, strolling about in the cities, or to the castles, and 
 throufih the country, without returninir to their convents for two or 
 more months ; and there is nothing which thej preach more zealously 
 than — " Give us, and we will pray for you." Thus they sought only 
 their own, and not the things which are Jesus Christ's, and laid the 
 foundation of endless troubles in the church.' One effect of his own 
 preaching, he tells us, was that the mendicants lost all their hearers.'-* 
 He says that their preachers had, often, not more than four bigoted 
 women, Beguins as they were called, to hear their German sermons. ^ 
 But they made use of these w^omen, who were so devoted to them, as 
 tools to get up a party against Conrad, whom they hated. " Then I 
 saw — he writes — that they whispered, in their corners, calumnious 
 reports about my sermons and my doctrines, that they muttered against 
 me, and through their Beguins inflamed the minds of the people with 
 hostility to my doctrine ; and that they declaimed against me in the 
 public market-place," etc. 4 Applying to his own case the parable of 
 the sheep and good shepherd, he says of his opponents : " Should they 
 come into my fold, I do not believe that mt/ flock would be led far 
 astray by them ; but I would give them a taste of the salt of God's 
 word ; for these sheep will not care for the barren and perhaps noxious 
 pasturage which others would give them, but as I hope, will follow the 
 voice of their shepherd, when they hear it, as the salt which cannot 
 lose its savor." 5 The mendicant monks reproached him with having 
 forsaken his parish, and made his appearance ere called for, as a 
 preacher in Prague. But he met them by appealing to the divine call 
 which had moved him to preach in Prague, characterizing these monks 
 themselves, who would hinder another from preaching, as dumb dogs.^ 
 He says : " He who is afraid to speak the truth, is not a true preacher 
 sent of God. Unmoved, therefore, will I praise the Word, Lord, in 
 thee, and not be afraid. I long after the glory of our Saviour." 
 " While I am willing to answer them — he says — who say Christ has 
 not sent me, I am greatly at a loss when I ask what the proof is of 
 their own mission. For if we look at the heart and the conduct as the 
 proof of those who are sent of God, it will be evident that by them the 
 rules of Christ are not at all observed. For Christ said to his preachers, 
 when he sent them forth. Freely ye have received, freely give. But no 
 sooner have they a congregation, than they set up a money table to make 
 
 ' Eos, qui se dicunt columnas ccclesiae, * Et per beginas suas homines inducere 
 
 per villas, oivitates, castra discurrentes vi- ad oppositionem doctrinae meae et iu pub- 
 
 disses, sfd infra duos menses vel quod lico foro declamare, caet. 
 
 amplius ad monasteria non rcdeuntes, et * Non credo, quod amplius sinant sc 
 
 nil aliud ita ferventcr sicut " Date nobis, duci per ipsos oviculas meas, sed dabo eis 
 
 et orahimus pro vobis " pracdicantes, et de sale vcrbi dei, sicut potero ad linj^en- 
 
 tantuni (juac sua sunt, ct non Jesu Chris- dura, quia non curabunt infructuosa et 
 
 ti quaerentes, et infinita scandala in eccle- forte noxia pascua aliorum, sed suum pas- 
 
 sia j)onentes. torem audicntes, ut spcro, vooem ejus se- 
 
 * Videntes se ab omnibus auditoribus qucntur tanquam sal non infatuandum. 
 
 suis derelictos. * Populum, quos turn etiam recedente 
 
 ' Alibi vel in suis monasteriis populum me non multum curassent, cum omnes 
 
 nullum, sed quatuor bcjrinas vel quinque facti sint quasi canes muti. 
 in sermonibus suis teutonicis, ut hodierna 
 declamat evidentia. 
 
CONRAD OF WALDHAUSEN. 191 
 
 money out of their hearers." When Conrad had thus turned against 
 him tlie liatred of the mendicants, no pains were spared on their part to 
 convict him of hcresj, and expose him to persecution. They forgot the 
 mutual jealousies and animosities which generally divided Dominicans 
 and Franciscans, and entered into a league against their common enemy. 
 He compared one of these coalitions with the alliance of Herod and Pi- 
 late against Christ.' iVs Conrad had won the warm esteem and affection 
 of multitudes, his enemies by their persecutions of him drew the hatred 
 of the people upon themselves, which they signified by frequently assault- 
 ing their agents, though never put up to this by Conrad. When they 
 accused him of stirring up the people against them, he could reply to 
 them with truth, that they had brought this shame upon themselves by 
 their crafty plots against him, and would do so again, as often as they 
 tried the same experiment. 
 
 In the year 1861, when the general of the Dominican order, who 
 was at the same time papal legate, visited Prague, the two orders of 
 the Dominicans and Franciscans, of whom we have just spoken, drew 
 up in concert 29 articles, which they had extracted from his sermons, 
 and placed them in the hands of the archbishop of Prague, that he might 
 be brought up for examination on these charges. The archbishop upon 
 this convoked an assembly which was numerously attended ; but, on 
 the day appointed for the trial, no one dared to appear against Conrad 
 as a public accuser. He afterwards composed a paper in defence of 
 himself, of which we have freely made use in the preceding narrative. 
 He showed, first, that his opponents had either exaggerated or miscon- 
 strued his language ; then he repeated, for substance, what he had 
 actually said, and what had induced his opponents to accuse him of 
 heresy. When they complained that he disturbed everywhere the 
 public peace, his reply was : " I say, that in my sermons I never 
 aimed at disturbing the public peace, and never have disturbed it ; I 
 mean the peace of the good." He adverts to the example of Christ, 
 who, in his intercourse with the Scribes and Pharisees, undoubtedly 
 disturbed the peace ; even as he said, I am not come to bring peace 
 on the earth, but a sword. " When I am complained of, then, for dis- 
 turbing such peace as this, I take it cheerfully, for our Lord says : 
 *' So persecuted they the prophets which were before you," etc. 
 He refers to the zeal of Elisha against the golden calves set up by 
 Jeroboam, and remarks : " These golden calves, many in our time 
 would be strongly opposed to have thus thrown away. They would 
 prefer to have them used to decorate the bodies of the saints, and thus 
 add to their gains.^ 0, how many are there, who would suffer a great 
 deal for their order, but who could not be induced to suffer even a 
 little in the way of preaching the pure truth." Still later in the 
 season of the same year, the Archduke Rudolph of Austria, being on 
 
 ' His words are : Duo magni hostes ' His words : Quos nostri temporis qui- 
 
 sibi rautuo fuerunt coneiliati. dam nequaquam sic ahjicerent, imo inde 
 
 ' Ipsi sibi ipsis causa horum opprobrio- sanctorum corpora, ut inde consequereu- 
 
 rum praeteritorum et interea secutoinim tur majora lucra, vestirent. 
 et etiam futurorum per suam indiviosam 
 et malitiosam mei vexationem. 
 
192 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 a visit to Prague, -wished to get Conrad back again to Vienna ; but 
 the latter could not be induced to go, being fully persuaded that it 
 TN'as his duty to remain still in the blessed circle of his labors in Prague, 
 ■whatever persecution he might have to encounter. He plead the obli- 
 gations under which he had been laid by the emperor as his excuse for 
 not accepting the invitation. i Thus Conrad continued to labor in 
 Prague, finally as parish priest of the Teyn church, till his death, 
 which happened in 13G9. 
 
 If the two persons of whom we have just spoken were distinguished 
 for their activity as practical men, and prepared the way by this means 
 for the reformatory tendencies in the Bohemian church, the same thing 
 cannot indeed be said of Matthias of Janow ; but his inferiority as a 
 practical man was more than compensated by the wide influence he ex- 
 erted through his writings and by his scientific exposition of principles. 
 In his works we may find not only the reformatory ideas which passed 
 over from him to IIuss, but also the incipient germs of those christian 
 principles which at a later period were unfolded, in Germany, by 
 Luther, although the latter never came directly under the influence of 
 ^latthias of Janow. Of Huss it may be said with more truth, that he 
 fell behind Matthias of Janow, than that he passed beyond him. Mat- 
 thias of Janow, son of Wenzel of Janow, a Bohemian knight, had re- 
 sided six years at the university of Paris, pursuing philosophical and 
 theological studies ; hence he was called the Parisian master (magis- 
 ter Parisiensis). But the man who contributed most to the particular 
 shaping of his later religious and theological development was Militz, a 
 man the general impression of whose life filled him with such profound 
 and enthusiastic admiration. It is plain from his writings, that he 
 had travelled much in Germany and in Italy ; and that he had visited 
 Rome. He shows a familiar acquaintance with the relations and the 
 customs of diflerent countries. Thus, in speaking of his residence in 
 Lucca, under Pope Urban VI., he mentions a law which he there 
 heard promulgated, directing that unmarried females should neither 
 wear ornaments of gold or silver, nor any dress oSending against the 
 strictest rules of moral propriety .2 He seems in the earlier part of his 
 life, to have been given to the prevailing notions and tendencies of his 
 time ; until, perhaps through the influence of Militz, he became pene- 
 trated with that holy fire, as he expresses it, which left him no rest.3 
 In still another place, he speaks of this revolution in his religious expe- 
 rience, stating how, in the light of God's word, the corruption of the 
 church of his time, by which he himself was affected, first became 
 clearly apparent to him, and how, by the grace of God, he had been 
 rescued from it. " Once — says he — my mind was encompassed by 
 a thick wall ; I thought of nothing but what delighted the eye and the 
 
 ' His words: Me hoc faccrc non posse, conis proclamari. quod mulieres innuptae 
 
 qui per dominum impcratorcta essem be- nou deferant aurum et argentum. uec noa 
 
 neritiatus. alias quascunque vestes impudicas et pro- 
 
 ' Sed et in Lucca solemni in Lombar- fanas. In his book hereafter to be cited, 
 
 dia civitate tempore papae Urbani VI. au- ^ We shall presently cite these words 
 
 divi publice per vicos et plateas voce prue- more at length. 
 
LIFE OF MATTHIAS OF JAXOW. 193 
 
 ear, till It pleased the Lord Jesus to draw me as a brand from the 
 burning. And while I, worst slave to my passions, was resisting him 
 in every way, he delivered me from the flames of Sodom, and brought 
 me into the place of sorrow, of great adversities and of much con- 
 tempt. Then first I became poor and contrite ; and searched with 
 trembling the word of God. I began to admire the truth in the holy 
 Scriptures, to see how, in all things, it must be exactly fulfilled ; then 
 first I began to wonder at the deep wiles of Satan, to see how he dark- 
 ened the minds of all, even those who seemed to think themselves 
 wisest." Aller describing how he thus came to understand the corrup- 
 tion of the church, 1 he says : " And there entered me, that is, into my 
 heart, a certain unusual, new, and powerful fire, but a very blessed 
 fire, and which still continues to burn within me, and is kindled the 
 more in proportion as I lift my soul in prayer to God and to our Lord 
 Jesus Christ the crucified ; and it never abates nor leaves me, except 
 when I forget the Lord Jesus Christ, and fail to observe the right dis- 
 cipline in eating and drinking ; then I am enveloped in clouds, and 
 unfitted for all good works, till, with my whole heart and with deep 
 sorrow I return to Christ, the true physician, the severe judge, he who 
 punishes all sin, even to idle words and foolish thoughts." 2 And he 
 moreover intimates that, before this, he shared in an opinion which be- 
 longed to the common church spirit, though a new light dawned after- 
 wards on his mind ; he thought, namel}^ before he had experienced 
 that internal change in his views and feelings, with the majority of the 
 clergy, that the laity ought to be kept from frequent participation of 
 the Lord's supper. He himself says : " Concerning the jealousy and 
 pride of those clergymen who are displeased with the frequent partici- 
 pation of the Lord's supper by the laity, I am silent ; since I Avas 
 myself, in like manner, under the influence of such feelings in former 
 days ; and I am conscious that I was, myself, oftentimes actuated 
 by such jealousy when I, in like manner, dissuaded lay persons from 
 such frequent enjoyment of the communion. I had not, as yet, expe- 
 rienced the singular light on this subject which came to me from above." 3 
 These words certainly do not refer merely to a change in his views on 
 
 * Et piisslmus Jesus elevavit mentem a piece in the above cited work of Jano^v, 
 
 meiun, ut cognoscerem homines absorptos which may be found, under the title De 
 
 avauitate; et tunc legens intellexi lucide sacerdotum ef monachorum carnalium 
 
 abominationem desolationis, stantem late, abominatione, printed among the woi'ks 
 
 nimis alte et firmiter in loco sancto caet. of Huss, and under his name, I, fol. 376 
 
 De sacerdot. et monach. carnalium abom- seq. I was betrayed into a mistake when 
 
 inatione, in Husse's Works, Norib. 1558, I made use of this extract as belonging to 
 
 I, fol. 398. p. 2, cap. 22. Huss, in my account of the life of that re- 
 
 ^ Etingressus est in me, id est in pectus former, in my '' Kleihe Gelegenheiischrif- 
 
 mcum, quidam ignis etiam corporaliter ten.'' Berlin, 1829, S. 223. 
 subtilis, novus, fortis et inusitatus, sed val- ' Taceo super hoc, de invidia et snper- 
 
 de dulcissimus : et continuatus us(}ue mo- bia talium, quibus vcxantur, cum indig- 
 
 do, et semper tanto magis succenditur, nantur de comraunione frequente a plebe- 
 
 quanto magis elevor in oratione ad deum jis, quia talibus fui obnoxius similiter, et 
 
 et dominum Jesum Cln'istum crucifixum ; me ipsum agitatum pluries invidia recog- 
 
 et nunquam recedit, vel remittitur, nisi novi, cum similiter talem frequentem com- 
 
 quando obHviscor Christi Jesu. quando munionem sacramenti dissuadebam plebe- 
 
 relaxo disciplinam in comedendo vel po- jis ; adhuc non eram singulari lumine su- 
 
 tando. Ibid. This extract is taken from per hoc de excelso visitatus. 
 
 VOL. V. 17 
 
194 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 a particular point, but to one of a much deeper and more radical 
 character ; for it is evident from them, that at an earlier period of his 
 life, he was affected with the same spiritual pride, the same contempt 
 of the laity which others had ; was conscious of being an utter stranger 
 to those ideas, that dawned later upon him, with regard to the univer- 
 sal priesthood of Christians. In the year 1381, he became a preben- 
 darv at Prague ; and the experience which he here gained of the world- 
 liness of the higher clergy in the meetings of the cathedral chapter, is 
 alluded to by himself, where he complains of the noisy squabbles of 
 the procurators and advocates ; '' which — says he — any one will have 
 it in his power to witness who is ever employed in their consistories." ^ 
 It was his particular business to preside over the confessional, where 
 doubtless would be manifested his great zeal for the spiritual good of 
 souls, and where he had great opportunity to inform himself more mi- 
 nutely of the good or bad in all classes of society, and of the religious 
 wants of the people. That he did not fail to make the most of it is 
 apparent from the observations which he has recorded in a work of his 
 presently to be mentioned. He died before the end of the century, in 
 the year 1391. 
 
 The work from which we get the clearest insight into the s|;iirit and 
 influence of Matthias of Janow, is a piece of his own which still remains, 
 in great part,2 buried in manuscripts, entitled De regulis veteris et 
 iiovi Testamentl. The exegetical matter forms the smallest part of the 
 Avhole. It is chiefly taken up with reflections on the history of the 
 times and hints concerning the future, based on the rules of the Old 
 and New Testaments, on the prophetical elements which they contain. 
 Although there is a great deal in the details which is arbitrary, parti- 
 cularly in the apocalyptic calculations, yet grand prophetic glances into 
 the future are also to be found. He pourtrays the utter corruption of 
 the church in all its parts, and explains the causes of it. His full in- 
 tuition of the present is here presented to view. It is not a coherent 
 exposition : it seems to be made up of several independent treatises 
 composed at different times. Hence we may notice repetitions ; cer- 
 tain fundamental ideas are ever turning up again. As a chronological 
 characteristic we may notice, for example, that in one place seven 
 years are supposed to be expunged after the beginning of the great 
 papal schism which would bring it down to the year 1385 ; but, in 
 other places, we find him referring to the synod held in Prague, in 
 1389, of which we shall speak hereafter. Matthias of Janow himself, 
 speaking of the motives which induced him to write this work, says : 
 '' The Lord Jesus instructed me how to write all this which relates to 
 the present condition of priests, that is, the carnal ones, and which throws 
 
 ' Litcs, contcntiones, strcpitus — , quod 'All except the fragment above cited 
 
 viderc potciit, qui in consistoriis illorum and puhlished under the name of Huss. 
 
 fuerit aliquando occupatus. See the frag- Some intercsiiting extracts from the work 
 
 ment from the work of Matth. of Janow have been recently published by P. Jordan, 
 
 about to be mentioned, wliich wrongly in his paper, '"Die Vorlaiifer des Uussi- 
 
 goes under the name of lluss, in his work teuthums in Bohmen." 
 l)e regno, populo, vita et njoribus Anti- 
 christi, cap. 21, fol, 374, p. 2. 
 
JANOW'S WORK DE REGULIS V. ET N. TE3TAMENTI. 195 
 
 li;^]it on the character of these times ; but w!iat the end is in wliich all 
 this is to result, he only kno'.vs who set me to work. And he sent me 
 his spirit who shoots the fire into my bones and into my heart, leavin'>' 
 me no rest till I expose the hidden shame of the mother of harlots (the 
 corrupt church as symbolized in Revelation)." ^ lie has many things 
 to complain of in the clergy ; that they were absorbed in worldly 
 business, governed by worldly motives ; that they neglected spiritual 
 things ; that the least of all tlieir concerns was the study of the Bible 
 and of the old church-teachers. He speaks of them as " Men who 
 knew nothing of the spirit of Jesus the crucified, who had never medi- 
 tated day and night on the law of the Lord ; — carnal-minded priests. 
 . 'J'hey are men — he proceeds — who are not wholly devoted to the 
 study of the Holy Scriptures, who have not been instructed in them 
 from their youth, yet, for all this, they boldly stand forth as teachers, 
 because perhaps they possess a certain gift of elocution ; and they pro- 
 vide themselves with collections of sermons, postills for every day in 
 the year, and so, without any further search into the Holy Scriptures, 
 they hold forth those current homilies, preaching with great ostenta- 
 tion. They are people who know nothing about the Bible. Such 
 persons do not preach from devotion, and from joy in the Divine Word, 
 nor from zeal to edify the people ; but because this is the business 
 assigned to them, or because they are fond of making a display of their 
 skill in speaking, or because they are hunting after popularity, and 
 find gratification in being favored and honored by the people. So 
 they have recourse to their collections of sermons, or put together fine 
 words, and furnish out their discourses with stories, and with promises 
 of large indulgences." It was already objected to the preachers of 
 reform, to Janow, and men of a kindred spirit, that they exposed to 
 the people, in the spoken language of the country, the wickedness of 
 the clergy and monks, thus injuring their reputation. In defending 
 himself against this reproach, Janow saj^s, alluding to the words of 
 Christ, (Matt. 16 : 6.) : " Here we find plainly refuted, those who in 
 their sermons say the vices of the regular clergy and monks ought not 
 to be exposed in discourses held in the spoken language of the coun- 
 try." The clergy and monks were not a httle exasperated by such 
 admonitory discourses to the people. This preaching, they said, made 
 them contemptible and odious to the people ; as if they themselves did 
 not know or want to know the course pursued by Jesus the crucified ; 
 for he purposely exposed before the masses of the people the hypocrisy 
 and wickedness of the rehgious orders of the teachers and priests, 
 and exhorted his disciples to beware of their doctrines, although these 
 priests were filled with rage and took the utmost ofience at this. He 
 ofters as reasons for pursuing this course with the people, that it was 
 necessary in order that the devout clergy and monks might not sulfer 
 
 ' Dominus Jesus instituit me ad scri- et misit me spirirus ejus, qui mittit ignem 
 
 bendum ea omnia, quae contini^unt statum in ossihus nieis et in meo pcetore, ct quie- 
 
 praesentem sacerdotum, pura carnalium, turn esse non sinit, quin revelera filium iu- 
 
 et ({uae explicant qualitatem horum tern- iquitatis et ])erdirionis, et quin denudeni 
 
 porum : ad quern autem tiuem hoc perve- ac discooperiain abdita deeoiis foruicaria^ 
 
 niat, ipse solus novit, qui me iu id posuitj mulieris. 
 
196 . HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 injury from being confounded with those others, in order that the 
 piety of the former might shine forth more conspicuously in contrast 
 ■with the wickedness of the latter, in order that these latter might by 
 such public exposure be led to repentance, in order that others might 
 be put on their guard against the infection of their example. Like 
 distempered sheep the}^ should be separated from the sound, lest other 
 christians should fall into the same corruption. In remarking upon 
 the words of Christ relative to the sending forth of the angels before 
 tlie day of judgment, (Matt. 13 : 41,) which he refers to the send- 
 ing f )rth of messengers or preachers, in the last times, for the purpose 
 of purifvin:]: the church from its dross, he savs : It is to subserve also 
 another purpose, to keep the simple people from following after raven- 
 ing wolves, to make them certain of the guides whom they should 
 adhere to, and of those whose counsels they should avoid ; and, again, 
 to remove from the sinful laity every such ground of excuse for their 
 vices, as they plead when they say to those who correct them, do not 
 the monks and the clergy even the same ? — On the other side it was 
 maintained, that even in wicked ecclesiastics their office should be 
 respected ; no man could be permitted to set up himself as judge over 
 them, contrary to the rules of order ^ and, in proof of this, the appeal 
 was made to Matt. 22 : 2, 3. To this he replies : Such language 
 of reproof is pointed expressly against hypocrites, who enter not by the 
 door into the sheepfold. All such are thieves and robbers. Hypo- 
 crites will not punish and betray one another. They can be known as 
 such only by the spiritually minded. They do not know themselves. 
 Christ, in the passage already referred to, (Matt. 16 : 6,) exhorts to 
 watchfulness. Janow describes it as one of the cunning tricks of the 
 arch enemy to persuade men that Antichrist is still to come, when, iu 
 truth, he is now present and so has been for a long time ; but men are 
 less on their guard against him, when they look for him as yet to 
 come. *' Lest — says he — the abomination of desolation," (Matt. 
 24 : 15,) should be plainly manifest to men, he has invented the 
 fiction of another abomination still to come, that the church, plunged 
 still deeper in error, may pay homage to the fearful abomination which 
 is present, while she pictures to herself another which is still in the 
 futureJ It is a common, everyday fact, that Antichrists go forth in 
 endless numbers, and still they are looking forward for some other and 
 future Antichrist." As to the person of Antichrist, he affirms, that it 
 was neither to be a Jew, nor a Pagan ; neither a Saracen, nor a world- 
 ly tyrant persecuting Christendom. All these had been already ; 
 hence they could not so easily deceive. Satan must invent some new 
 method of attacking Christianity. He then defines Antichrist as fol- 
 lows : " He is and will be a man who opposes christian truth and the 
 christian life in the way of deception ; he is and will be the most wicked 
 christian, falsely styling himself by that name, assuming the highest 
 station in the church, and possessing the highest consideration, arro- 
 
 ' Ne tamcn ipsa abominatio rcvcletur, rorem, quatenus sic horrendam abomina- 
 fin;:it alia ii a'liominationcin ati'utiiram, ut tioncm venerans atquc colons, uihiloiuinus 
 per hoc amplius immittat ecclesiara in cr- uuam aliam futuramfabuletur. 
 
JANOW DE REGULIS V. ET N. TESTAMENTI. 197 
 
 gating dominion over all ecclesiastics and laymen ; one who, by the 
 working of Satan, knows how to make subservient to his own ends and 
 to his own will the corporations of the rich and wise in the entire 
 church ; one who has the preponderance in honors and in riches, but 
 who especially misappropriates the goods of Christ, the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, the sacraments, and all that belongs to the hopes of religion, to 
 his own aggrandizement and to the gratification of his own passions ; 
 deceitfully perverting spiritual things to carnal ends, and in a crafty 
 and subtle manner employing what was designed for the salvation of a 
 christian people, as means to lead them astray from the truth and 
 power of Christ.'^ It is easy to see how Matthias of Janow might in- 
 tend under this picture to represent the entire secularized hierarchy. 
 It was not to be imagined that Antichrist would form a particular sect, 
 or particular disciples and apostles. Nor would he come upon the 
 church preaching his own name, in the open and obvious manner with 
 which ]\Iohammed spread abroad his doctrines ; that would be a tyran- 
 ny too strikingly apparent, not at all fitted to deceive mankind. Anti- 
 christ must be more cunning than all that. His organs must stand 
 forth in the name of Christ, and profess to be his ministers. He was 
 thus to deceive men under the mask of Christianity. i The multitude 
 of carnal men, led on by the most subtle artifices of wicked spirits, had 
 been brought to think that, in following fables, they were pursuing the 
 right way ; to believe that in persecuting Christ's believers, or Christ 
 and his power, they were persecuting Antichrist and the false doc- 
 trines of his agents, just as it happened with those Jews and Pagans 
 who called Christ a deceiver, and put him and his apostles to death, 
 supposing that by so doing they did God service. Thus too the actual 
 Antichrists would dream of another Antichrist to come. Commenting 
 on 1 John 4 : 3,2 he thus addresses the christians of his time : '• Every 
 spirit who dissolves Christ, is Antichrist." Jesus is all power, all wis- 
 dom, and all love. Every christian, therefore, who from design, either 
 in great or in small, in a part or in the whole, dissolves this, dissolves 
 Jesus ; for he destroys and dissolves God's power, God's wisdom and 
 love ; and so, in the mystical sense, he is Antichrist. An Antichrist 
 is every evil spirit, who in any way, directly or indirectly, opposes him- 
 self to the christian faith and christian manners among christians." Al- 
 though Christ is eternal, and therefore all opposition to the divine being 
 may be regarded as in a certain sense opposition to Christ, still, in the 
 proper sense, he thinks there was no Antichrist before the incarnation.*^ 
 Hence the devil, although a liar and murderer from the beginning, yet 
 
 ' Non est autumantlum, quod isdem an- ^ After the Vulgate : Et omnis spiri- 
 
 tichristus congregaret sibi aliquam sectam tus, qui solvit Jesum, ex deo non est. Et 
 
 singularem, vel discipulos et apostolos, hie est antichristus, de quo audistis quo- 
 
 suis iniquis studiis consentientes, sic ut niam venit, et nunc jam in mundo est. 
 notorie et publice ecclesiam invadet, at- "^ Sed non fuit antichristus, quia tunc 
 
 que verbo suo et praedicatione sui nom- adhuc non erat Christus, quia secundum 
 
 inis in populis manifeste gentes per se modum loquendi logice, licet ista propo- 
 
 seducet, veluti fecit Machometus in Sara- sitio sit vera, Christus semper fuit, ta- 
 
 cenis ; non faciet tali modo, nam hoc tie- men haec est vera, ante incarnationem 
 
 ret tyrannice solum et nimis manifeste, filii dei non fuit antichristus. 
 vel stolide et rude. 
 
 17* 
 
198 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 k 
 first be^an to be Christ's murderer, and Antichrist, at the bemnnin^^ of 
 the christian church ; but not everywhere, but only in the church which 
 IS the bodv and the kinjidom of Christ. Before the time of Christ's 
 appearance, Satan did not need many arts to maintain his dominion 
 over men. For Satan had ah-eadv brought mankind once under his 
 yoke ; and strongly armed he kept watch over his paLace, (Luke 11 : 
 21.) ; his goods were in peace, and he needed not give himself much 
 trouble or use much deception. Bat when Christ appeared, and the 
 Spirit was poured out upon men in seven-fold gifts, (compare Isaiah 
 11 : 2,) when everything visible and invisible was made ministrant to 
 their salvation, (where he refers to Romans 8 : 38,) the case was 
 altered. And as the evil spirit was now disarmed and laid bare by 
 Christ, he must summon to his aid the collective host of most malig- 
 nant spirits, and employ their busy and cunning natures in the work of 
 deceivinii; and warrim^; against the saints of God. " And so he has 
 continued to do, down to the present day. Nothmg is weaker than 
 Satan when exposed to the light. ^ He works through worthless monks ; 
 carnal priests ; the wise of this world ; great teachers ; for these are his 
 most eflScient tools of mischief" Applying, to his own times, the 
 passage in 2 Thess. 2 : 9, he seeks to show, that in those times also, 
 Antichrist deceived and drew men to himself by false miracles, won- 
 ders wrought by Satanic agency, thus turning the love of the iniracu- 
 lous to his own ends. ''Our modern hypocrites — says he — are so 
 fully possessed of the seven spirits, that there is nothing they can 
 approve, in deed or w^ord, however otherwise profitable or commend- 
 able, unless they see signs and wonders. And, in truth, they ask for 
 signs more than even the Jews did ; thus showing that they are a still 
 more perverse and adulterous generation, than were the Jews in the 
 time of Christ. This is hid from us, that for these many years genu- 
 ine miracles have ceased to be wrought by the faithful ; and especially 
 now, in the time of Antichrist, for the trial of their faith." He sup- 
 poses that as faith was to maintain itself in the time of Antichrist, 
 under trials, miracles could not be given anv lonirer for its sun- 
 port ; false miracles only were to be permitted for the trial of faith. 
 And then he savs : " But Satan and his instruments are allowed to 
 perform miracles by demoniacal agencies, on account of them that 
 perish because they would not receive the love of the truth." In 
 another place, he says : God suffers many works to be done by the 
 agency of Satan, that hypocrites, in spite of their lukewarm and sen- 
 sual life, may receive honor from men, and other simple ones may be 
 drawn over by such wonders to their side. And the more such won- 
 ders are done in the name of Christ, through images and relics of 
 saints, or in holy places, the more dangerous they are, on account of 
 their greater influence in misleading the simple into false doctrines, so 
 as to nedect the truth of the sacraments of the church, and to surren- 
 der themselves to fables and human ordinances, and the superstition 
 of sellers in the house of God. Such delusions, he thinks, Satan was 
 
 * Xiliil imljccillius diubolo denudato. 
 
JANOW'S WORK DE REGULIS V. ET N. T. 199 
 
 allowed to practise, particularly on account of those unthankful christ- 
 ians, who were ashamed of the truth and humility of Christ, and of the 
 opprobrium of his cross, despising the sacraments and especially the 
 body and blood of Christ; and even the Holy Scriptures had become 
 to them common and contemptible as if they were a fable, or a very 
 level}'' songJ Therefore had the devil obtained from the Lord so much 
 power to deceive ; but only in secret, only in the mystery of Antichrist ;. 
 so that his ministers should lie in the name of Christ, and that their 
 miracles should be wrought through the image of Christ, and through 
 the bones and other relics of saints. " For, before God I ask you, 
 how can any faithful christian wonder, if Satan receives power to exe- 
 cute divine judgment on evil-doers, that his lying wonders should be 
 wrought even through images or the bones of the saints, when power 
 was given him over Christ in the temptation ? " 
 
 The prediction in the second epistle to the Thessalonians (2: 3) rela- 
 tive to the falling away which should come first, Janow supposes had 
 been already accomplished in the moral falling away. "Faith — he 
 says — is styled ^6?es fonnata because it is made up of all the virtues. 
 For it requires all other virtues in connection with itself, and is kept 
 fresh and sound by every virtue.2 Hence it follows, that a frilling away 
 from the faith consists especially in the admission of every kind of sin, 
 and the omission of every kind of virtue ; " and because we see, on the 
 whole, at the present day, in the time of Antichrist, all the virtues 
 neglected among Christian people." 3 He holds to a slow and gradual 
 evolution of the two kingdoms of Christ and Antichrist, side by side. 
 The destruction of Antichrist and the multipUcation of the true wit- 
 nesses of Jesus Christ, were to take place in a gradual manner, begin- 
 ning from that present time, till all should be carried into fulfilment. 
 The time had begun in the year 1340 ; where we are to observe, that 
 Satan had been gradually working, through Antichrist as his instru- 
 ment, for a long period of time, introducing evil under the appearance 
 of good among the people of God, turning good customs into abuse, dif- 
 fusing more widely, every day, his principal errors. While Satan, then, 
 was thus gradually to introduce the mysteries of his Antichrist into the 
 church, keeping his toils concealed ; so, on the other hand, the Lord 
 Christ, gradually manifesting himself in his beloved disciples, was at 
 length, before the final judgment, to reveal himself in a great multitude 
 of preachers. The spiritual revelation of Christ, through his genuine 
 organs, the spiritual annihilation of Antichrist by the same, and a new 
 illumination of the church, were to prepare it for the last personal ap- 
 pearance of Christ, and precede that event. In this spiritual sense he 
 understood much of that which is said concerning the victory of Christ 
 over Antichrist, and concerning the signs of Christ's appearance. Thus 
 
 * Verbum dei quoque et omnis scriptura ^ Sequituv, quod discessio a fide maxirae 
 
 divinitus inspirata facta iis est nimis com- sit per admissionem cujuslibet peccati et 
 
 munis et inveierata et levis. tanquam fuit per omissionem cujusque virtutis, et quia 
 
 fabulae vel canticum, quod dulciter sonat. in summa hodie videmus in tempore Anti- 
 
 ^ Fides Jesu formata ideo dicta, quia cbristi fieri omissionem omnis virtutis in 
 
 componitur ex orani virtute, vel quia cor- populo Christiano. 
 requirit et integratur ex omui virtute. 
 
200 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 following Militz, he referred what Christ says respecting the sending 
 forth of the angels to separate the good from the bad, to the sending 
 forth of the true messengers of the faith, inspired preachers, who should 
 effect a moral separation of tlie people in the corrupt church, so that 
 the simple should no longer follow after ravening wolves, but know to 
 "whom they should adhere, and whose councils they should avoid, so 
 that every excuse might be taken away from sinning laymen ; who 
 were wont to say to their reprovers. Why accuse me of this or that sin- 
 ful action ? Do not monks and priests even the same ? Accordingly 
 he says the expression that Christ will destroy Antichrist by the breath 
 of his mouth, is not to be understood literally, but spiritually : that he 
 will quicken, by his Spirit, his elect priests and preachers, filling them 
 with the spirit of Elias and of Enoch, with the spirit of zeal and of in- 
 nocence, with the spirit of a glowing zeal and of penitence, with the 
 spirit of activity and of devotion ; that he will multiply them in num- 
 ber and send forth his angels once more through the world, to banish 
 all troubles and grievances from his kingdom, the Spirit of Christ work- 
 in:' throuiih them, most inwardlv and effectuallv, kindlinfi; hfe in the 
 dry bones, quickening anew the dead faith of many over the wide field 
 of the church, so that the bones, clothed with flesh and blood, should 
 awake to new life in the faith of the Son of God.^ ''And bound with 
 each other in the unity of the life of Jesus, many should come together 
 and be held in union by the cords of a glowing love ; and such the 
 communities would love, and would follow." Speaking of the signs of 
 these times, he says : " As John the Baptist pointed away to Christ, 
 so these signs point away impressively with their fingers to Antichrist, 
 already coming ; they point to him now and will point to him still 
 more ; they have revealed him, and will reveal him, till the Lord shall 
 destroy him with the breath of his mouth ; and he will consume him 
 by the brightness of his new revelation, until Satan is finally crushed 
 under his feet. The friends of Christ, however, will destroy him, will 
 rob him of his trade, the company of the preachers of Jesus Christ, 
 united and bound together by the love and wisdom which come from 
 God." All holy Scripture — he says — predicts, that before the end 
 of the world the church of Christ shall be reformed, renovated, and 
 more widely extended ; that she shall be restored to her pristine dig- 
 nity, and that still, in her old age, her fruitfulness shall increase.2 
 *' This is what most perfectly accords — he says — with other passages 
 of Scripture, in the Gospels and the Prophets, which declare that, at 
 the end of the world, the church of Christ shall be reformed, that Sodom 
 shall be restored to her former dignity, and that Elias shall come and 
 restore again all things." We should here remark that Matthias, in 
 
 ' Quod dominus Jesus inspirabit suos spiritu Jesu intime per eos operante et 
 
 electos saccrdotes et praedioatores, rcplens iuHammantc ossa arida, fidem raortuam 
 
 eos spiritu Eliae et Enoch, spiritu zeli et miiltorum. 
 
 innocentiae, spiritu fervoris et poeniten- '^ This passage recurs again in the paper 
 
 tiae, spiritu strcnuitatis et devotionis, mul- Do regno etc. Antichristi. printed in the 
 
 tiplical)itque talcs et mittet adhuc semcl works of Huss, { I. fol. 368), except that 
 
 per mundum universum suos angelos, ut in this copy a great deal is mutilated. 
 coUigant de regno suo omnia scandala, 
 
JAXOW'S WORK DE KEGULIS V. ET N. T. 201 
 
 this place, discards the old opinion that the prophet Elias was to come 
 literally to prepare the way for Christ's second appearance, which had 
 its advocates among his contemporaries ; and maintains that this re- 
 appearance of Elias was to be understood only in the spiritual sense ; 
 as he says : " Tliinkest thou that divine truth, in this passage, points 
 to the person of Elias, or rather to some other one filled with the spirit 
 of Elias and enriched with his peculiar gifts ? I believe, according to 
 my own understanding of the place, that in these words the truth did 
 not mean literally Elias, in the person of Elias, or not him alone, but 
 rather the spirit and the power of Elias in the multitude of holy preach- 
 ers and teachers, through whom his overflowing spirit should restore 
 all thing?, and that this coming was to animate the dry bones. Were 
 the former Elias to come bodily from paradise, as some have for a long 
 time believed he would, it does not appear how one individual could 
 run to and fro through the whole world, and by his own pains and 
 preaching be able to restore the whole company of the elect, for this 
 would surpass his power ; but it is possible only through the omnipo- 
 tent Spirit of Jesus, that fills the whole world, who requires for his 
 work not so much that literal Elias, since he can raise up from the 
 very stones, from pagans and laymen, sons of Abraham, many Eliases : 
 unless perhaps it might be said, it would be of use for Elias to come in 
 person, in order that ignorant and negligent men might be convinced 
 by his testimony. Yet this argument, as it seems to me, cannot hold, 
 because holy Scripture gives answer, in those words addressed to the 
 rich man in hell, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither 
 would they be persuaded though one should rise from the dead (Luke 
 16: 31). But suppose the case that EUas, coming in person, should 
 give testimony to the truth ; yet this would diminish the value of faith 
 in the appropriation of Christianity, or indeed destroy its whole signifi- 
 cance." ' We see from these words, how profoundly this man under- 
 stood the nature of faith as an internal fact of the temper, the bent of 
 the disposition to the godUke, where the act of apprehending in the act 
 of surrendering one's self to the godlike, takes the place of a constrain- 
 inoi; evidence : as an aSair of the will, which cannot be forced bv anv 
 power from without, by any proofs that convince the understanding. 
 He then proceeds : " Holy Scripture abundantly testifies that, in the 
 last times, no miracles shall be wrought in proof of the truth ; for the 
 faith in Jesus shall then have reached its perfection, and so shall be 
 preserved. Hence, too, all miracles have ceased on the part of God's 
 saints, and the fabulous portents and prodigies of Antichrist have 
 multiplied. No reason therefore remains, why the person of Elias 
 should take upon himself the labor of restoring all that is in the condi- 
 tion of decline." And in this same connection he mentions Militz as 
 one in whom Elias had reappeared. He says that the parables of Christ 
 relating to the process of preparation for the kingdom of God, the para- 
 bles of the leaven and of the grain of mustard seed, would find their 
 
 • Et nunc dato, quod Elias personaliter colenda, tunc jam per hoc raeritum fidei 
 veniens vcritati testimonium perhiberet, et evacuaretur, aut uti(jue cidem detrahere- 
 inde videtur, et in religione Christiana ex.- tur. 
 
202 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 application, as in the primitive, so also once more and preeminently in 
 the last times. 
 
 We ^vill now endeavor to portray more minutely the character of 
 Matthias of Janow, by observing how he attacks the corruptions of the 
 church in its different relations and Iranches, tracing back these po- 
 lemics to the fundamental intuitions bearing within them the germ of 
 the reformation as it was afterwards realized by Luther. He looked 
 upon the church as an organism in which all the members should be 
 connected with each other according to their several gradations, and 
 should cooperate together, like the head and different members of the 
 human body. But now the case was quite otherwise ; when the popes 
 had haughtily placed themselves above the bishops, and taken all the 
 power into their own hands, and stood in closer connection with the 
 princes than with the bishops. " In the communities — says he — the 
 pope should first of all be leagued, and should be one hand with the 
 bishops, and take special care that the bishops rightly discbarge the 
 functions of their office, and that they are quite familiar with those 
 functions. But in fact he is more closely leamied with kiu'zs and 
 princes, exalting himself above measure over those who, jointly with 
 him, preside over the governance of the church. Besides this ; break- 
 ing up the regular and orderly connection throughout the whole body, 
 he has usurped to himself the distribution of benefices which belonged 
 to the bishops. Neither do the bishops stand in that beautiful relation 
 in which they ought to stand to the ]iarish priests ; but they place 
 themselves too far above them, and would rule over the cler<2;v. Thus 
 the parish priests stand at a farther remove from the bishops than is 
 right or profitable for the church ; they are strangers and unknown to 
 them. The bishops themselves have their most familiar intercourse 
 ■with the barons of the land, with the princes, and with their own great 
 canonicals, and the rich men of the world. Thev do not take all suit- 
 able pains for the good, useful, and wholesome placing of the parish 
 priests, but are taken up with managing the affairs of the lords, and 
 with other temporal and civil concerns ; while other bishops are so 
 "wholly in their own devotion, as to bestow but little attention on their 
 sons the parish priests. And hence arises great harm both to soul 
 and body. Such sacrifices of private devotion were not well })leasing 
 to God. He describes the peace which they would conclude between 
 themselves and God alone ; the long psalms ; the tender and perhaps 
 tearful devotion ; of all this he says : " Consider, how little acceptable 
 it can be to the Lord, when he says to Peter, Lovest thou me more 
 than these? (John xxi.), and. Feed my sheep ; but did not say to 
 him. Obtain peace for thjself in thy private residence. So again, the 
 hearts of the ])arish ministers and priests are not bound up in true 
 union with their communities, but are divided from them bv many vain 
 and frivolous concerns ; especially do they hug closely to wealth, to 
 honors, and their own emolument. For they too — he sa^^s of them 
 — put themselves too much above their communities, are too much 
 estranged from them ; have too much respect for persons.'' He says 
 the people should be subject to the priests and the princes, to the for- 
 
JANOW'S WORK DE REGULTS V. ET N. T. 203 
 
 mer in spiritual, to the latter in temporal things ; but the people are 
 disobedient to the clergy, not so much through the fa'ilt of the people 
 or of the princes, as through the fault of the licentious and carnal 
 priests. " First — says he — because we priests, descending to the 
 love of this world, and given to fleshly pleasures, were robbed of the 
 strength with which we were armed from a!)ove, as Sampson of old was 
 robbed by a harlot of his hair, we have become weak and foolish, like 
 the kings and princes, and so contemptible to the people and to man- 
 kind : and hence the fear and veneration of the comiuuuities towards 
 us has been extinguished, and the people are already discontented 
 with being subject to us and with obeying us ; so that where they can- 
 not help themselves, they obey us only with disgust, because we are 
 carnal and look only after our own comfort. Hence we have become 
 pusillanimous and effeminate, exercising meditation but faintly and 
 lukewarmly, and giving way from fear to those who invade our riglits 
 and liberties ; and thus by degrees our authority and the weight of our 
 influence has become nothing ; the people have broke loose from it, 
 since Ave take pleasure in the society of the friends of this world, and 
 in having a share in whatever they love. And because toe have not 
 obeyed our God, with good reason we are not ourselves obeyed by 
 those who are under us ; and because we have forgotten Jesus the 
 crucified, the people have also forgotten our great power and our great 
 authority ; and because we have rejected the cross of Christ and its 
 reproach which was our greatest glory, we have ourselves lost thereby 
 our own good name. And because we sought the glory and honor of 
 this world, the greatest abomination in the sight of the Lord Jesus the 
 crucified, and of the church of the faithful, therefore are we become 
 objects of abhorrence to him and to his saints, and in particular to the 
 holy church militant ; therefore has the left hand of the church, the secu- 
 lar arm, become too fat, and gained too great an extension in its flesh, the 
 fleshly persons belonging to it ; while the right hand, the spiritual author- 
 ity and jurisdiction, is greatly wasted and weakened ; and therefore has 
 the right hand of the church, which should be filled with spiritual treas- 
 ures, suffered itself to be filled rather, like the left hand, with the pleas- 
 ures and honors of this world. To unite both together was impossible, as 
 no man can serve two masters." He refers to the commission of the apos- 
 tles, who were directed to take nothing for their journey, and to Peter's 
 words — Silver and gold have I none. He endeavors to make it plain by a 
 compaiison, how much depended on the character and ability of the 
 pa?'i8h priest. '^ We are to notice here — says he — that the arm, how- 
 ever strong in itself, is still without any great power of lifting or hold- 
 ing, unless the fingers of the hand are strong."^ Were the arm 
 wounded, if but the fingers were healthy and strong, the hand would 
 still be capable of doing a good deal, capable of managing weapons, etc.2 
 
 ' Unde hie est advertendum, quod om- ^ Et si digiti essent sani et fortes, man- 
 
 nis maims, quantumcunque sit Ibrtis et ro- ente alias tamen manu laesa in brachiis et 
 
 busta in brachiis suis, tenere tamen multa vuhierata, adhuc tota manus esset capax 
 
 non potest vel comprehendere, nisi per armorum vel bonorum plurimorum. 
 sumniitates raauus, vel per fortes et intc- 
 gros digitos. 
 
204 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 He uses this figure to illustrate the great importance of the parish 
 priests to the prosperity of the church ; and the necessity of multiply- 
 ing them. Even though the popes and the bishops should be negligent, 
 ■weak, or in other respects incapable, as they often really were, yet 
 if this company of the devout priests, who were brought into immediate 
 intercourse with the communities themselves, remained sound and ca- 
 pable, the folds of Christ would neither be scattered, nor neglected, nor 
 subjugated by their enemies ; ^ because the Lord Jesus, through whose 
 power alone these priests bring forth fruit in laboring for the salvation 
 of souls, stands by them equally as well, replenishing his fellow- 
 laborers and faithful ones, in equally as peculiar and direct a manner, 
 ■with all the fulness of his grace and power." 2 It is evident from 
 these words, that although Matthias left the papacy with the entire 
 liierarchical fabric untouched, yet an altogether different view of the 
 nature of church governance lay at the basis of his ideas concerning the 
 best condition of the church. The guidance of the church by means of 
 the word, proceeding from the lips of the parochial clergy^ was with him 
 the main thing. He thought lightly of all the rest. 
 
 One reason of the corruption of the church appeared to him to be 
 the overloading it with human ordinances, the excessive multiplication 
 of ecclesiastical laws. Let us hear what he has to say on this subject. 
 The multitude of commands and prohibitions is a wily trick of Satan to 
 bring men under his yoke, and to encangle their souls ; since it invari- 
 ably happens that the inferior clergy will, among the communities, do 
 many things which are forbidden by their superiors, and omit to do 
 many things which are prescribed by the ordinances of their superiors ; 
 especially when these ordinances are become so multiplied, that to know 
 them all, it would be necessary to provide one's self with many large 
 volumes and to expend a great deal of money and time in studying them, 
 ere it would be possible to have an exact knowledge and understanding 
 of the whole. For by what possibility could every individual clergyman 
 become owner of the Decreium and the Decretals, the sixth book of the 
 Decretals and the Clementines ? The understanding of all this is so 
 difficult, that hardly would a man of good abilities find it in his power 
 to obtain a complete knowledge of the subject in three 3'ears. How 
 can a pastor, occupied with looking after the spiritual welfare of the 
 community entrusted to his care, find time for so tedious and exact a 
 study, and make himself so familiar with those laws, that the decisions 
 on every point should be ever present to his mind ? ^ And yet this 
 
 ' Dato casu, nt plnrimum fieri assolet, omni plenitudine ^ratiai-um ot virtute, cu- 
 
 quod jam brachium cpiscoporum Roman- jus .solius potestate isti sacerilotcs tViu-tura 
 
 orum vel alii episcopi invcniantur ne^^li- atferniit et in salute animarum proHciuut 
 
 gentes, debilcs vel quovis modo vulncrati, et operantur. 
 
 tamcn si haec multitudo sanctorum sacer- ^ Quoniodo curatus o<'cupatus in operi- 
 
 dotum applicata immediate plcbibus inte- bus salutis in plel)es commissas ]iotcst ip- 
 
 pra et fortis manserit, tunc greges Christi sas ita per longa et diliuentissima studia 
 
 Jesu adliuc non neglijrentur necpie disper incorporare et ipsas faniiliares sil)i ita red- 
 
 gentur necjue expugnabuntur ab inimieis. dere, ut (puu-lilx't puiieta in iis eontenta 
 
 ' Quia dominus Jesus ipsis assistit aeque semper et ubitpie ad nianum habeat et in 
 
 bene et aeque proprie et imm(;diate cum promptu. 
 suis cooperatoribus et suis tidelibus cum 
 
JANOW'S WORK BE REGULTS V. ET N. T. 205 
 
 "would be absolutely necessary for each individual, if he would avoid 
 being entrapped in many tilings by Satan, and at length condemned as 
 a transgressor. And while the parish priests are thus burdened, they 
 on their own part burden the laymen, the communities, the heads of 
 households, with extortions and human ordinances, devised for the 
 purpose of gain ; and deprive them of many of the liberties pertaining 
 to divine worship. " And if one — says he — should act differently 
 from what these ordinances re(piire, he knows that he must incur the 
 anger of God and his saints, or the anathema. They have enthralled 
 the conscience of the people, declaring the transgression of their rules 
 to be a mortal sin ; for in these days they lay more stress on a failure 
 to observe minutely the order of the liturgy, than on the sins of lying, 
 of a sleepy indolence, or covetousness, or anything of the like nature ; 
 so that men now-a-days are more afraid to transgress one of these hu- 
 man ordinances than the commandments of God himself." " The more 
 ordinances there are — says he — the more frequent are transgressions 
 and the stronger the temptations to transgress. Neither do they con- 
 sider how these multifarious ordinances force the multitude to despise 
 them and the commandments of the Lord at the same time ; which 
 arises from the fact that he whose mind is turned on many things^ is 
 so much the less fitted for single duties ; and from the fact that such 
 ordinances, since they relate to sensible and outAvard things, appear 
 to the communities in a peculiarly clear light, and inspire in them 
 reverence ; while the commandments of God are spiritual, and God 
 who ordains them is a being whom they cannot see. Such ordinances, 
 therefore, owing to the constant presence of the lawgiver, make a 
 greater impression on the multitude, than the commandments of the 
 invisible God. Then, again, these commandments appear to carnal men 
 as every-day matters ; while those human ordinances, being something 
 new, make a stronger impression on the minds of the people. Again, 
 men are fond of seeking their salvation in such sensible and corporeal 
 things, which lie near their capacities ; and lose sight of the Crucified, 
 who alone is the salvation of souls. And they settle it fast in their 
 consciences, that they can be justified by such visible things, though 
 the spiritual love of Christ may be absent from their hearts." He seeks 
 to show how this multitude of laws, and this externalization of re- 
 ligion, lead men away from Christ. "In these days — he says — 
 Satan has done much to draw away Christians from Christ ; for in these 
 days men are ashamed even to mention Jesus the crucified, or him 
 who was spit upon.- Nay, they abhor to hear such truths ; and they 
 vehemently censure and persecute the persons who thus confess Christ. 
 And such things have already been introduced into the pulpit ; so that 
 those false prophets despise and persecute the men who confess Jesus 
 who was crucified and spit upon, and say it is quite enough to pro- 
 nounce such words once a-year ;2 and the same false prophets extol to 
 
 ' Idcirco Iiac via Satanas multiim hodie suspensum in patibulo aut horrende occi- 
 profecit in Christianorum abductione, nam sum. 
 
 hodie jam Christiani horrent nominare Je- ^ Et dicant, quod sufficit talia semei in 
 sum crucifixum vel Jesum consputum vel anno nominare. 
 VOL. V. 18 
 
206 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRIXE. 
 
 the skies their stately ceremonies and their ordinances addressed to the 
 eyes of the people, and pronounce anathema on every man who docs 
 not punctiliously observe them. Satan does all that lies in his power 
 to bring it about that the memory of Jesus Christ should be obHterated 
 from tiie hearts of Christians." Appealin^^ to the apostle Paul,_ he 
 maintains, that many laws avail nothing ; " for man's uni)ridlcd wick- 
 edness, ever striving to exceed weight and measure, will not be kept 
 in check by human laws and ordinances, when it always despises the 
 laws of God ; for it is continually breaking over the latter, and the 
 more, with greater effort, greater pride and contempt, in proportion as 
 it meets with obstacles to hinder it. Let not precepts and prohibitions, 
 then, be multiplied in the church ; for by means of them the devil has 
 acquired a great power of involving the people in greater guilt ; partly 
 because, as has been said, he takes occasion from these ordinances to 
 tempt them, and partly because these ordinances ensnare men's con- 
 sciences, and make the sins of the unrighteous still heavier." He ac- 
 knowledges that evil doers ought to be punished on account of their 
 transgression of the commandments of the Lord, and ought to be re- 
 strained from the commission of sin, by terror ; that those should be 
 tamed and subdued by terror who still remain at a stage little superior 
 to that of brutes, who have no understanding of that which is good.i 
 But the righteous, they who are actuated by the Spirit of Jesus the 
 crucified, stand in no need of multiplied human commands and prohi- 
 bitions ; because the Spirit of God guides and teaches them, and be- 
 cause they practise the virtues and obey the truths of God spontane- 
 ously and cheerfully, like a good tree, which brings forth good fruit of 
 itself, God ever supplying the power from above ; a because such, made 
 free by the indwelling Spirit of Christ, generally feel themselves 
 cramped and confined by the multitude of ordinances, even in the per- 
 formance of virtuous works." He illustrates this by the case of the 
 Jews who would have prevented Jesus from healing the sick because 
 it was the sabbath day ; also by the case of the Pharisees, who would 
 have kept Christ from plucking the ears of corn on the sabbath ; and 
 by the reply which he made to them (Matt. 12: 7). "No man — 
 says he — can possibly invent laws suited to every contingency and re- 
 lation ; the Spirit of God alone can do this, who knows all things and 
 holds them together ; and inasmuch as this Spirit is present every- 
 where and to all men, the spirit of man also, which is in himself, which 
 with the Spirit of Christ alone knows what is in man. This spirit of 
 man, which is everywhere in men, which everywhere searcheth the 
 man as such, has the knowledge of his powers and of his wants, this 
 
 * Iniqui tamen indigent poena vel vin- ' Si vero sunt justi ct acti spiritu Jesu 
 
 dicta pro suis peccatis et pro transgres- crucifixi, tunc Iii non indij^^ent niandatis 
 
 sionepraeceptorumdominicorum ; ini))edi- et contradictionibus humauis plurificatis, 
 
 endi sunt a suis malis conatihus, vel in turn cpiia docet eos et ducit spiritus dei, 
 
 corum prava voluntate per hujusmodi turn quia voluntarie et dulciter virtutes et 
 
 jtraecepta prohiliitiva, (juae ]»arant viam veritates dei oj)crantur, tanquam bona ar- 
 
 justitiae ad vindictani exsequendam prop- bor per se fmctus bonos produccns, dco 
 
 ter tcrrorem bestiarum, in quibus non est desuper dante. 
 bonorum intellectus. 
 
JANOW'S WORK DE REGULIS V. ET X. T. 207 
 
 S3 
 
 alone can give to each man befitting laws and establish them. lie brin 
 in illustration of this the ten commandments, which arc plain to every- 
 one, even the dullest of understanding, so that no man can pretend 
 that he is embarrassed by them ; and Jesus the crucified, who is the 
 power of God and the wisdom of God, has in a certain manner briefly 
 summed them up in a single precept, requiring love to God and our 
 neighbor ; for love is the fulfilment of tlie law, and love is the perfect 
 Jaw of liberty. All other and multiplied laws of men — he says — are 
 superfluous and inadequate. They ought not to be called traditions, but 
 superstitions. No man can frame a law adapted to all times and places 
 and circumstances, which is not contained in that one precept. To the 
 class above mentioned, he reckons the laws regulating fists, seasons of 
 prayer, the number of hymns which are to be sung, and the like. To 
 them he ascribes frequent disquietude of conscience, which arose from 
 the fear of having transgressed such laws. Confession to the priests 
 served to illustrate the same thing, who made it much more a matter 
 of conscience to have committed a mistake with regard to ecclesiastical 
 hours, than to have transgressed any one of the laws of God. He 
 ■wishes things might be so ordered that no other fear or punishment 
 should ever be held up before subjects than in reference to the words of 
 Jesus Christ and his commands. All other inventions of men should be 
 regarded simply as counsels. At the same time, however, while he 
 thus refers everything to the law of Christ as the only valid law, he 
 defends himself against the objection, that by so doing he would over- 
 turn all human law, and says : " I have not been so presumptuous, I 
 protest, as to attack the decrees and ordinances of the holy fathers 
 and of the approved councils, who, actuated by the Holy Ghost, have 
 so done and ordered all that has been done and ordered by them ; 
 but my attack is directed against those who, instead of being inspired 
 by the love of Christ, strive and have striven, under the impulse of 
 their passions, to glorify themselves, and who take more delight in the 
 glory of their own name, than in honoring the name of Jesus who was 
 crucified." Thus human laws were to be recognized onh/ as such, and 
 the commandments of God to remain in their dignity, and as such to be 
 reverenced and obeyed. This the faithful apostle of Christ, who might 
 well serve as an example to all disciples, had wonderfully illustrated 
 in himself: for Paul (in 1 Cor. vii.) distinguishes what he says in his 
 own name from what he makes known as a precept of the Lord. " Mark 
 — says he — with what discrimination and moderation he speaks to his 
 flock, so as nowhere to impose a necessity and nowhere to inspire fear, 
 except for the precepts and words of the Lord Jesus Christ." He 
 places in contrast with this the form of the papal bull : Jubemus man- 
 damus, etc. Following directly after this is a prophetic utterance : " I 
 speak to all ; let him wdio is capable of receiving it, receive it. 
 So have I gathered from the holy Scriptures, and I believe, that all the 
 above-named tvorks of men, ordinances and ceremonies, ivill be utterly 
 extirpated, cut up by tlte roots and cease ; and God alone ivillbc exalted, 
 and his word luill abide forever ; and the time is close at hand, zvhen 
 
208 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRIXE. 
 
 these ordinances shall he abolishedy^ In another place he says: 
 "xVll rules are one; they proceed from one principle and aim at one 
 end. They do not ohtain their authority from themselves, nor are they 
 observed in the church of God on their own account ; but they are in- 
 separably included in the same holy law of Christ, Avhich is inscribed 
 by the Holy Spirit on the hearts of believers, which binds many widely- 
 separated nations in union with one another, and makes all dwell Avith 
 one set of manners in the house of Jesus the crucified.- While the one 
 commandment of Christ, and his one sacrifice preserved in the church, 
 greatly promote unity, so on the other hand, the multitudinous pre- 
 scriptions of men burden and disturb the collective body of the church 
 of Christ." He is continually foiling back on the principle, that unity 
 among men can only come from the word of God ; a forced uniformity 
 would of necessity produce nothing but divisions. He endeavors also, 
 in his own way, to establish this principle speculatively. God alone is 
 the infallible and self-sufficient being, needing no rules from without 
 to govern his conduct. His own will is his rule, and his wisdom is the 
 immutable rule for that. This supreme rule is the Father himself; the 
 Son of God is the rule for all creatures. This primal type and this rule 
 is the Word of the Father ; the Father worketh everything through 
 him ; and after the same analogy, the Holy Spirit is the beauty and the 
 proportion of this rule, which nowise differs in essence from that primal 
 type ; hence the Holy Spirit and the Word are the only true rule for 
 all that relates to man ; hence, therefore, the Father is the shaping 
 principle, from which all things proceed ; the Son the shaping princi- 
 ple towards which all things aim ; the Holy Ghost the principle in which 
 all things repose ; and yet there are not three rules or forms, but one. 
 Hence he infers that the highest rule, by which everything is to be 
 tried, is Christ, that single rule, which is alone necessary and alone 
 sufficient for all apostles and every man that cometh into the world, in 
 all matters, in every place, and at all times ; not only for men, but 
 also for angels, because he is himself that truth and wisdom which 
 works mightily from one end of being to the other. God imparted to 
 all essences a tendency and direction to their ultimate end, and in 
 their just relation to that consists their perfection and the perfection of 
 the universe. This is the inmost determining rule for each essence, 
 but it is a thing not different from the essence of the object itself. 
 The rule by which all things are governed, is a different matter. This, 
 holy Scripture calls by various names, God's word, God's will, etc. 
 Although this is the common rule for all, yet it is the rule preeminently 
 for rational beings ; because other beings cannot consciously appre- 
 hend it, nor freely appropriate it as their own.^ Then he comes upon 
 
 ' Et piUo, quod omnia pracnotata opera auctorisatae in dci ecclcsia, ut definitao 
 
 hominum, caerimoniae ct traditioncs fiin- scorsim, sed inclusae indivisihilitcr in una 
 
 ditus (k'strucntur ct cossabunt, et exaltahi- eademque saneta lejjje et regula eliristiana 
 
 tur dcus solus, et verl)uin ipsius inanfl)it a Cliristo Jesu tradita per spirituni sanc- 
 
 in aeternum, et tempus illud jam instat, tum in eordil»us lideliuni descripta. 
 in quo ilia evacuahuntur. ^ Quoniam omncs res aliae a rationalibus 
 
 '■^ IJe^^ulae omncs sunt unum et ex uno creaturis, quamvis al> hae vcritate et se- 
 
 ad uuum, uon auicra per sc celcbratae ct cundum cam gubcruantur pro sua uatura 
 
JANOW'S WORK DE REGULIS V. ET N. TESTAMENTI. 209 
 
 the Idea of positive law, and sajs : " This has not been able to reform 
 rational beings who have fallen from the truth inwardly inscribed on 
 their hearts ; but rather became an occasion of still greater departures 
 from order, and internal hardness through sin. Sin, he remarks, with 
 allusion to the well known words of the apostle Paul, became still more 
 sin than it was before, from the very circumstance that it was now for- 
 bidden not only by the law within, but by another from without. ^ 
 For the more men are provided with means of grace, the more 
 knowledge they have, the greater in the same proportion is their guilt, 
 when, on account of sin, these means and this knowledge are despised. 
 God now finally determined to communicate to man his will in the 
 most perfect manner, by teaching him, through the Holy Spirit, all 
 truth in a living way ; and here he cites the words : It is the Spirit 
 that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing ; and outwardly he set be- 
 fore him his will through the revelation of the incarnate Word ; re- 
 minding man of his duty in a way the most cogent and the most effec- 
 tive, both from within, by the incarnate Word that dwells in us, and 
 from without, by his divine works standing before our eyes ; from 
 within, by grace and love, from without, by the sacraments which con- 
 tain and produce grace. This internal inscription of the truth upon 
 the heart, includes in it the two preceding revelations of it (he means, 
 without doubt, positive law and the law of conscience), and has vivified 
 and reformed them." ^ After having spoken, as already before, of the sim- 
 plicity of the ten commandments, and of the fact that these had been sum- 
 med up in the one commandment of love, he observes that Jesus, who sim- 
 plifies everything, had abolished the multitude of sacrifices and ceremonies, 
 and substituted in their place the one heavenly sacrifice : this was so or- 
 dered for the purpose of preserving unity in the church. Even the apostles 
 had subsequently imposed no new ordinances,orbut very few, and they had 
 given no other commandment than the love of God and of our neighbor, 
 which last they had sought chiefly to commend, to impress, and to 
 spread abroad among the nations. Hence Christ had left no written 
 law for those who came after him, though he might, in various ways, 
 have done so during his life time ; but he only gave his good Spirit, 
 the Spirit of the Father in the hearts of the faithful, as the alone living 
 and perfect law, and the all-sufficient rule of life. So too the apostles 
 had given but few laws, since they doubtless knew", that the law of the 
 Holy Spirit sufficed, which teacheth all truth, always, everywdiere, in 
 the most internal and immediate way. This led him to explain him- 
 self on a matter which seemed to be at variance with these views, viz. 
 the apostolical ordinances of the assembly at Jerusalem. We will cite 
 this remarkable passage, which contains a great deal of good sense. 
 ** The apostles let themselves down to the weakness of the new con- 
 verts from Judaism ; and by so doing they softened, in some measure, 
 
 vel forma, tamen eandera non cognoscunt, et foris peccatum prohibebatur. 
 
 neque habent in suis operationibus dec- ^ Haec itaque veritatis inscriptio colle- 
 
 tionem. git in se ambas praecedentes, easque vivi- 
 
 ' Multo magis enim peccatum peccantis ficavit et rcfonnuvit. 
 tunc erat, quam prius, quia jam de intus 
 
 18* 
 
210 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 the hostile tone of feeling entertained by the Jews towards the Chris- 
 tians ; and they would show, thereby, their reverence for the ancient 
 law, that the synagogue might not seem to be cast aside so all at once; 
 for the ancient mother, who was now dead, should be buried in a re- 
 spectful manner." ' Having spoken next against the multiplying of laws, 
 because of the difficulty which the laity must experience of knowing 
 them all, he adds : " For this reason I have myself come to the set- 
 tled conclusion that it would be a salutary thing, and calculated to 
 restore peace and union to Christendom, to root up that whole planta- 
 tion, and once more sum up the whole in that single precept, to bring 
 back the Christian church to those sound and simple beginnings where 
 it would be needful to retain but a few, and those only the apostolical 
 laws. For I believe, before my Lord Jesus the crucified, that the law 
 of" the Holy Sj)irit, and the common fathers, the parish priests, the 
 pop6 and the bishops, parochial clergy and their assistants, all these 
 are sufficient for the right guidance of the communities, and that they 
 are sufficient for each individual, sufficient to resolve every question, 
 and to decide all matters before the judicial tribunals and the tribu- 
 nal of conscience." From these principles he thinks it possible also to 
 demonstrate that monastic orders are not needed for the governance of 
 the church. 
 
 Though Matthias did not take any open stand against the hierarchi- 
 cal system, yet he appears nevertheless to have been a forerunner of 
 Protestantism in this, that he everywhere holds distinctly up to view 
 the immediate reference of the religious consciousness to Christ, and 
 makes the ti'ue unity of the church to rest solely upon that foundation. 
 But of the many passages relating to this point which might be cited, 
 we will select only the following : " It is Jesus Christ himself, who 
 ■with the Father and the Holy Spirit ever dwells in his church and in 
 each, even most insignificant portion of it, holding together, sustaining 
 and vitalizing the whole and all the parts, directly and from within giv- 
 ing growth outwardly to the whole and to each, even the most insignifi- 
 cant part. He is, therefore, himself the spirit and life of his church, 
 his m^'stical body .2 Jesus, the crucified, is the vine ; and all the 
 branches proceeding from him and abiding in him, have and ought to 
 have respect to him alone,3 and other foundation can no man lay than 
 that is laid." This immediate reference of the religious consciousness 
 to Christ being placed at the head, everything else must take its shap- 
 ing accordingly ; and we recognize here the germinal principle of a new 
 spirit, destined to burst asunder the old forms under which the christ- 
 ian spirit had been shackled and confined. He says, '' all unity pre- 
 
 ' Condesccndentcs infirmitati fratrum parti ejus et minntissimae semper assist- 
 
 novitiorum ex Judaismo conversorum, et ens totum et (juamlibct ipsius jiartem im- 
 
 per hoc compcscentos aliqualiter Christ- mediate atqiie intrinsecc contiiict, susten- 
 
 ianonim injuriam, et pnjpter rcvcreiitiam tat et viviticat, (hit iiicrciiuMitiim toti et 
 
 legis veteris, ne tarn cito refutata videre- cuilihct ct minimae parti ejus, quapropter 
 
 tur synairo<ra, quia mater aiiti(|uata. jam ij)se est spiritus ct vita suae ecciesiae et 
 
 mortua turn revercutia dedueeretur ad se- sui corporis niystici. 
 
 pulcrum. ^ Ad quam ipsum solum habent et de- 
 
 ^ Jesus est sohis, qui cum patre et sane- bent habere totalitcr suura respectum. 
 to spiritu toti ecciesiae suae et cuilibet 
 
JANOW'S WORK DE REGULIS V. ET N. T. 211 
 
 supposes a reference to some principle."^ But that wliicli forms the 
 unity of the church is the one God, one Lord, one Master, one reli;^ion, 
 one law, one commandment.^ "All christians who possess the spirit of 
 Jesus the crucified, and who are impelled by the same spirit, and who 
 alone have not departed from their God, are the one church of Christ, 
 his beautiful bride, his body ; and they are not of this world, as Christ 
 is not of this world, and therefore the world hates them." The unity 
 that has proceeded from Christ he places in contrast with those antag- 
 onisms among men and nations that have grown out of their apostasy 
 from God. " Difference creates the differences among nations and 
 their mutual alienation from each other, just as, on the other hand, uni- 
 ty in the acknowledgment of one God contributes especially to bring 
 about unity among nations." This he observes, was a thing well un- 
 derstood by the ancient kings, and especially by the Romans, who — 
 which is undoubtedly a mistake so far as it concerns the Romans — en- 
 deavored to bring all the nations which they subdued, to the worship of 
 one God such as they would have him to be. Idolatry — he says — and 
 apostasy from the true God, is not now merely what it was in earlier 
 periods, gross idolatry in the proper sense ; but the setting up of an 
 idol in the mind and the affections, and placing such an idol in the tem- 
 ple of the Holy Ghost; that is, to love the present world, and that 
 which is in the world, just this is apostasy from God, and idolatry. 
 *' Since — he says — it is already the day of light and of truth ; since 
 in Jesus Christ the supreme God has already come so near to men ; 
 nay, the greatest union has taken place, of God with men and of men 
 with God, because it is no longer God afar off, but a God near at hand, 
 dwelling even now, in the most intimate manner, in the souls that are 
 worthy of him ;3 since God has already appeared on earth and Avalked 
 with men, the very fact that christians should suffer themselves to be 
 engrossed by the cares of this world, that they should let their love 
 and their imitation be directed to any other than Jesus Christ, the true 
 God, or that they should make the home of their souls in this world 
 rather than in the Lord their God, or that they should cling with their 
 affections more to the world than to Christ, is plainly a falling away, 
 an apostasy from God and a preference for idols in the spirit and tem- 
 per of the soul, is already a separation from union with the body of 
 Christ, and a becoming incorporated with the body of Antichrist, of 
 the god of this world." Considering the matter from this point of 
 view, he is of the opinion, that what St. Paul says of the apostasy of 
 the last times, might already be applied to his OAvn time. He says 
 of his contemporaries : " They would attain to justification, and be- 
 
 * Universitas dicitur ab uno aliquo, ad unus magister, una religio, una lex, unura 
 
 quod omnia supposita universitatis habent praeceptum. 
 
 ordinem et attributionem, et nisi sit tale ^ Quia jam est dies lucis et veritatis, 
 
 nnum principale, a quo reliqua omnia et propinquitas summi dei ad homines in 
 
 tale quid, quod possit formare dc multis Christo Jesu, imo unio maxima dei ad 
 
 universitatem et conservare, non unitas homines et hominum cum deo, quia jam 
 
 neque universitas, sed dispersa diversitas factus est non deus de longinquo, sed deus 
 
 esset. de prope, imo deus jam intime inhabitaus 
 
 ^ lilud vero tale unum, faciens unita- animas dignas se. 
 tern ecclesiae est unus deus, unus dominus, 
 
212 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 lieve they can obtain it by many labors, -vvlth much expense, in the per- 
 formance even to satiety, of all the ne^Yly appointed ceremonies ; and 
 yet Christ is become to their hearts as one dead ; they have nothing 
 of his spirit, they see and know him" not. Hence they perform all 
 their isolated works according to the letter, and in a spirit of fear ac- 
 cording to the law ; but they know nothing of the true liberty, of the 
 freedom which is in the spirit of Jesus Christ. Hence they appear to 
 be little if at all different from the Scribes and Pharisees, among the 
 ancient people of the Jews, on whom our Lord Jesus Christ often de- 
 nounced wo ; and the apostle Paul has often reproached such persons 
 witli apostatizing from the christian fiiith. And all Holy Scripture, all 
 christian fiith proclaims, preaches and confesses, that Jesus Christ the 
 crucified alone is the one Saviour, and the end of the law for righteous- 
 ness to every one that believeth ; that he alone is all power, all wisdom 
 for every christian, he himself the alpha, the beginning and the end, 
 and that every one who is longing and striving to be a just and virtu- 
 ous man, must first of all and immediately put on Christ himself and 
 his spirit, because he is himself the way, the truth and the life. After 
 him alone, first of all, and with the whole heart, we should seek ; be- 
 gin to glorify him and to carry him in our souls, who alone hath re- 
 deemed us at that great price, his precious blood." He charges it 
 upon his contemporaries that when they separated faith from works in 
 their mistaken search after self-righteousness, they substituted in place 
 of the genuine christian morality, a morality which they had learned 
 in the schools of ancient philosophy. " Because they did not like to 
 retain Christ crucified in their knowledge, the Son of God gave them 
 over to a reprobate mind (Rom. 1: 28), to expend their efforts in 
 building up their own righteousness ; and they think they shall be able 
 to attain to a virtuous life after the methods of Aristotle, of Plato and 
 the other philosophers, by their own efforts and virtuous habits. "i On 
 the basis of these general views he forms his conception of the church 
 in its true sense, as a community taking its outward form from a prin- 
 ciple within itself, by its common reference to Christ ; he styles the 
 church the body of Christ, the community of the elect.^ For as he 
 makes the Augustinian system his pohit of departure, he everywhere 
 gives special prominence to the antithesis of elect and non-elect. 
 Placing that immediate reference of the religious consciousness to 
 Christ at the head, he is forced, even though he leaves the entire hie- 
 rarchical system untouched, still to admit those consequences, by which 
 the hitherto separating wall between priests and laymen must be bro- 
 ken down, the idea of the universal priesthood revived, Christianity 
 made to appear as a principle of purification from all that is of the 
 
 ' Ut cum magnis laborihus suorum stu- Words of Janow from tlie work already 
 
 diorum vclint suam justitiam statucre, et cited in the fragment puMished under the 
 
 per omnia ad modum Aristotclis aut Pla- name of Huss, cap. 10. fol. 370. p. 2. A 
 
 tonis ceteroriiinque j>hilosophonmi se pos- similar passage is also found in the work 
 
 66 ad vitam virtuosam pcrvenire per studia which has not as yet been published : Ec- 
 
 propria et virtutes usuales. clesia elcctorum, quae proprie et solum est 
 
 * Kcclesia electorum est unioum proprie corpus mysticum Christi. 
 et solum corpus mysticum Chrisli Jcsu. 
 
JANOW'S WORK DE REGULIS V. ET N. T. 213 
 
 world, the priestly character restored to the entire life, and the dis- 
 tinction of an inferior and a higher position in christian life, the sever- 
 ance of the consilia and the prcecepta done away ^vith. " Every 
 christian — says he — is already an anointed man, and a priest;" — 
 where he refers for proof to the well known passages of the New Tes- 
 tament relating to this j)oint. Attacking from this position the over- 
 valuation of the monastic orders and denying the s[)intual superiority 
 which they arrogated to themselves, he says, " there are many, stand- 
 mg in the opinion of the multitude at the very summit of holiness and 
 of christian religion, who reply to those inquiring after the shortest way 
 to salvation, that there is no other except to serve Christ after a per- 
 fect manner in this or that order ; so certain is it to every one, that a 
 person belonging to such an order is seldom or never condemned, and 
 that he who enters such an order is as speedily delivered from all pun- 
 ishment and guilt, as if he were born anew of water and the Spirit. 
 He who questions this, exposes himself to an irreconcilable war." He 
 vigorously attacks this opinion, the supposed opposition between spir- 
 ituals and seculars. " It is evident, that to style christians the tvorld 
 and seculars is a calumnious misrepresentation." He cites the words 
 of Christ " That which is born of the Spirit, is spirit." '* One of the 
 greatest trials that Christ's chosen can meet with is this, that when a 
 christian, whatever he may be, man or vy-oman, virgin or widow, is 
 heartily inclined to do penance for his or her sins, and to serve Jesus 
 Christ in an^ orderly manner, if such a person lives in the midst of the 
 christian community, and thus consecrates his life to Christ with a view 
 to live more perfectly in the simplicity of the spirit, and for suitable 
 reasons does not enter one of those monastic orders, he must at once 
 suffer persecution from them and from his own associates, must be 
 looked upon as a heretic and be called by the vulgar a Beghard, a 
 Beguine, a Turlepinus, or by some such reproachful epithet. Such an 
 one must be called up and put on trial, to determine whether he is a 
 heretic." From this and similar utterances of Matthias we find, 
 what is confirmed also by other indications in the history of these times, 
 that those who distinguished themselves among the laity by a more 
 earnest and strict piety than common, and more especially societies 
 composed of such persons, were very sure to be objects of jealousy, to 
 be stigmatized as heretical, and persecuted by the monastic orders ; 
 while on the other hand thev were derided and treated with abuse bv 
 the common nominal christians. Beghards was a nickname applied 
 in the same way at that time as Pietists at a later period, by an ambi- 
 tious clergy, zealots for the letter of orthodoxy, and by the vulgar 
 people of the world. After this, Matthias of Janow says, " Where- 
 fore the men of Christ, who live in the midst of our present christians, 
 must either enter into some monastic order, or else do their works of 
 charity only in secret." In a passage where he places the laity on a 
 par with ecclesiastics as to their title to daily or frequent communion, 
 of which we shall speak more particularly hereafter, he says ; " Al- 
 though the priest or minister of the church has precedence over the 
 holy laity in this, that it belongs to him to ofier, to consecrate and to 
 
214 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 distribute the body of Christ, yet they are equals as it regards the en- 
 joyment of the Holy supper; and although the priest has a nobler and 
 more eminent vocation in the church than any layman, yet every lay- 
 man who in a right and holy manner fulfils his calling or his service in 
 the church, is alike useful to the priest and to the church, because at 
 his own proper position, a position quite as necessary for Christ's 
 body, he serves Christ in his vocation, and therefore earns from him 
 his daily bread, if he does but live just as uprightly and faithfully to 
 the Lord Jesus, and as long as he perseveres, as he should do, in the 
 vocation to which God has called him. As the priest singing, pray- 
 ing and administering the sacraments thereby serves our common Lord, 
 Jesus Christ, and is therein useful to the church ; so the peasant in 
 ploughing, and pasturing his cattle, as long as he stands fast in the 
 common love, serves the Lord Jesus Christ and is necessary and use- 
 ful to his family or to the holy church. The same holds good of other 
 lavmen such as tradesmen and artisans in civil societv.J For as ife 
 would fiire ill with the church of God to be without priests or soldiers, 
 so neither could 'she dispense with, or even subsist without, peasants 
 and men of other occupations. As the manner of calling and the 
 worths of the former are necessarv, so too are tlie various callings and 
 works of the latter. And as the calling of the former and its exercise 
 comes to them from Jesus Christ, so the various callings and employ- 
 ments of the latter have come from God and Christ ; the calling of 
 the latter indeed is more primitive and more indispensable than that 
 of the former, since the occupation and practice of husbandry and of 
 the other trades existed earlier than that of the priest. Countrymen 
 and soldiers do not exist for the sake of priests, but priests for the 
 sake of the peasantry and the soldiers." He endeavors to show, that 
 the term saint is to be applied to every christian, whose life answers 
 to his name, although there are different degrees in the api)lieation of 
 this name, as there are in progressive sanctification. " The term 
 christian — he remarks — denotes a man sanctified by baptism, which 
 by another name is called unction ; hence the christian is one anointed. 
 So one is called a saint in virtue of that sanctifying grace, 2 which is 
 realized by a meritorious life and the virtues. This sanctifvin^: 
 grace, however, and the first baptismal grace are substantially the 
 same ; the onlv difference bein^r; that sanctifying grace consists in the 
 good use of that first grace.3 And thus every christian, so far as he 
 is such, is a saint ; since he has been sanctified by the first ba|)tismal 
 grace ; just as every saint must, by reason of his holy walk and vir- 
 
 ' Sicut saccnlos psallens ct oriins atque ^ Xcc ditfert in alio, nisi qnod j^ratia 
 
 sacramcnta admini^trans per hoc scrvit gratum faciens est bonus usus j^ratiae p-a- 
 
 conimiini domino Jcsu Cliristo, et in co tis datac sen eratiae jiriniae. When St. 
 
 est ntilis ccclesiae, ita rnstiens arando ct Panl says : " By j;race I am what 1 am," 
 
 sua pecora pasccndo manens in connnnni lie makes this refer to that ohjective <iracc 
 
 oaritatc similiter in co ipso optimc scrvit whidi may l)c used in diHcrent ways ac- 
 
 Jcsn C'hristo, ct est ntilis ct necessarins cordini: to the diticrent hent of the will 
 
 ipsius familiac vel ccclesiae sacrosanctae, the <_'ratia ^n'atis data; hut wlien St. Paul 
 
 et ita dc aliis singulis laicis mechanicis in says: "and tlii^ {.^racc was in nic not in 
 
 rcpuhlica. vain,"' he makes this refer to grace in the 
 
 ^ The gratia gratum faciens. second, suljoctivc sense. 
 
JAXOW S WORK DE REGULIS V. ET N. T. 215 
 
 tncs, bo a true elirlstian. All who have been sanctified, have been 
 sanctified by the anointing of grace and the s[)rinkling of the blood of 
 Jesus ; and hence it follows, that every christian is a saint and every 
 saint a christian ; and, as one cannot have the use of grace without its 
 liabit, so one cannot be a christian and at the same time not a saint. 
 Do not object to me the bad christians, who have lost the first grace 
 by reason of their misuse of it ; for these arc not christians — save as 
 the term is im|)roperly understood — any more than the painted figure 
 of a man is a man. But if you object that the baptismal sign and the 
 fides infonnis are to be found even in bad christians, and that tliis is 
 enough to entitle one to the name of christian, I answer, that the 
 mere sign, if the grace be not present, is not enougli either to make 
 one a christian or to entitle one to the name of christian ;" where he 
 introduces the following comparison : '' A hoop hung out before a 
 house (this in Bohemia must have been the sign of an inn) still does 
 not make the place an inn, if there is no wine in the house." Those, 
 he supposes, who merely made profession of Christianity, with whom it 
 was no more than an outward mask, their lives testifying against their 
 profession, deserved rather to be called antichristians than christians. 
 But though every christian is a saint, every christian is not equally so ; 
 but there are different degrees of holiness among a christian people. 
 *' While man remains in the present life, the way of progress in holy 
 living is ever open before him, this entire life being either a progres- 
 sion or a retrogression." He attacks here those mystical Beghards, 
 condemned in the year 1311 at the council of Vienne, who held that 
 man may in the present life, reach the stage of perfection, that he 
 may become absolutely sinless, so as to be incapable of farther prog- 
 ress in grace ; arguing that if continual progress were possible, one 
 might become more perfect than Christ. Now he supposes that though 
 degrees of progressive development infinitely different are conceiva- 
 ble, yet the fathers have distinguished three principal stages ; that of 
 beginners, that of the progressive, and that of the perfect ; or the 
 married, widows and virgins. He rebukes the pride of the clergy. 
 Did a man offend a clergyman, the bolt of excommunication was point- 
 ed at him forthwith ; but did he injure a layman, the wrong doer es- 
 caped with impunity. •* By the just judgment of God we are — says 
 he — fallen hke Lucifer." In the contempt poured upon the clergy, 
 that is, he recognizes a merited divine judgment. So in animadvert- 
 ing upon the false distinction of spirituals and seculars, and hierar- 
 chical self-conceit, while he gives distinct prominence to that fellowship 
 of the community of saints which excludes every selfish feeling, he 
 remarks : This union cannot be restored, unless those are first exclu- 
 ded, who are sunk in self-love, and in place of them the number of 
 those is multiplied who are zealous for that union of the church, and 
 which is still more, who serve the cause of Christ rather than their 
 own interests. He points not only at such as sought their own advan- 
 tage in earthly things, but at those too, who in the spiritual life made 
 their own interest alone the end, far removed from that love to com- 
 mon Christendom consisting of the perfect and the imperfect, the 
 
216 HTSTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 righteous and the weak. They, he says, who begin with despising 
 the common manners of their fellow-christians, who begin with extoll- 
 ing in particuhir their own societies and brotherhoods, as compared 
 with others, mar by this course the unity of the christian church and 
 disturb christian peace. They begin by thinking highly of themselves 
 and would exalt themselves above the common mass of christians, hold 
 themselves to be the only spirituals and apostolicals, and call the great 
 mass of other christians Babylon and the world ; they pretend that 
 they alone fulfil the counsels of Christ, that the people neither can at- 
 tain nor ought to attain the same perfection. Nor is it necessary to 
 salvation ; they are only bound to it by their vows. Thus from the 
 position which he uniformly maintains, the great principle of the one- 
 ness of the christian life, Matthias of Janow carries on his attacks 
 against the fidse distinction of clericals and seculars, and at the same 
 time against a distinction grounded upon the same views, which had 
 stood good for so many centuries, and had been adopted by the scho- 
 lastic theology into the concatenation of its system, whereby it was 
 more firmly established, the distinction of consilla and prcecepta. Af- 
 ter the words above cited he remarks, " applying all this to themselves 
 alone and excluding the people, they set up themselves as objects of 
 the greatest veneration, thereby promoting in the rest of the people 
 great freedom of the flesh, the relaxation of all christian discipline, 
 and great self-deception on the part of the simple, who plead in ex- 
 cuse of themselves, we are worldly people, living in the flesh ; we may 
 be permitted to have this or that." And if there happen to be in christ- 
 ian communities persons who seek to reach, according to their mea- 
 sure, evangelical perfection in their mode of life, as poverty, chastity, 
 obedience to their spiritual superiors, the other ordinary christians will 
 soon persecute them." lie illustrates this by the same facts which 
 we have noticed already, that the monks from jealousy persecuted such 
 persons under the name of Beghards and Beguines, telling them that 
 if they wanted to lead a life of that sort they should become monks. 
 What have you to do with the world ? What have you in common 
 with the people of the world ? " Hence it comes about that among 
 the common laity, no pious people are to be found." He complains that 
 those who were devout among the laity were suspected ; and yet they 
 were best qualified by word and example to advance and confirm the 
 progress of others. And since such saints were the people's neigh- 
 bors, were regarded by them as equals with whom they associated in 
 the daily business of life, they might easily provoke imitation in every 
 thing ; which could not happen in the case of the monks, who stood so 
 far apart from the people in their calling, and in their modes and hab- 
 its of life.' The conduct of these devout people being looked upon 
 by the others with suspicion, carnal and lukewarm christians were led 
 to cherish the delusion, that it was well with them ; in spite of their 
 
 ' Et quia per id, quod sunt talcs sancti, vcl possunt esse in monachis et rcligiosis, 
 
 vulgo iiitimo propiii(|ui pares in vita et qui extant nimis lonj^inqui in vita sua et 
 
 conunixti in contuhernio, imitahiles fa- professionc a plcbibus. 
 ciliter in omnibus, quae nequatiuam sunt 
 
JANOW'S AVORK DE REGULIS V. ET N. T. 217 
 
 worldly and lulvewarm affections they still thought themselves sure of 
 salvation, observing that all who s )ug]it to live godly lives among tlie 
 christian people were despised by the monks. They were flattered In 
 this tlieir delusion by citations from scripture,falsoly inter[)reted. lie 
 gives the following as an exam])le : " Tliere is no better thing than to 
 lead a moderate life, and not to differ too much from the rest of the 
 world ; for no men are worse than those who would bo righteous over- 
 much." 
 
 With this zeal in maintaining the universal priesthood of the faithful, 
 the equality of Christian worth and dignity in all orders and profes- 
 sions, Mattliias united the deepest interest in another object, one which 
 then formed a weighty point of controversy between the different par- 
 ties concerned, the question relating to the frequent or daily commu- 
 nion of laymen. AVhile in the seventeenth century, in the Catholic 
 church of France, it was thought an indication of greater Christian se- 
 riousness, greater zeal for true conversion, to invite laymen to abstain 
 for a while from the communion, in order to prepare themselves for the 
 more worthy participation of it, and avoid the mistake of using, it as an 
 opus operatum^ the case seems to have been exactly reversed in the 
 period of which we are speaking. The party who were most ^alous 
 to awaken the laity and promote their Christian advancement, of whom 
 Matthias of Janow may be considered a representative, w.ere urgent 
 for inviting the laity to this frequent participation^ ina^naiich, as this 
 sacrament was the best means for promoting Chris-ti^pi growth, for ex- 
 citing and strengthening faith : but the opposite. party feared lest the 
 laity should be put on a level with the clergy. 5rfctthias of Janow took 
 the liveliest interest in this controversy. He was ever falling back up- 
 on it, and indeed wrote a paper on the qai%ect, which is incorporated 
 in the greater work already mentionedo The stamp of his whole peculiar 
 Christian bent is impressed upon these polemical transactions ; and it 
 deserves to be noticed that he unifarmty expresses himself as if he 
 thought the laity also were entitled to partake of the communion in both 
 kinds. Many of the arguments, \^)iich he ^ adduces, admit of being 
 equally applied to show that ti>e laity may "partake of the cup as well 
 as of the bread, and ought npt^ in this, respect, *to 'be placed lower than 
 the clergy; and we cannot ' doubt, tha,t the' recognition o£/ the equal 
 right of the laity in this matter also, lay at the bottom, as he every- 
 Avhere tacitly assumes it. "It is — says he — doing God and Christ 
 the greatest wrong, for qp.p to deny himself or others the frequent par- 
 taking of the body of Onrist." He assumes that God, who in the 
 highest sense belongs {9, all, and is in the highest sense good, and inca- 
 pable of any respect to. persons, must take delight in all who are wil- 
 ling to receive him.^ Re cites the passages, Avhere Christ invites men 
 to his fellowship. He appeals to the analogy of the Old Testament, to 
 the daily sacrifice, which corresponded to the Lord's supper ;2 here, 
 too, were bread aid wine, just as both must be together in the holy 
 
 » Quia (lens surr\ii:^e co.iT)munis et sum- in omnibus, qui eum suscipiunt, vult de- 
 mc bonus sine i\ccejj|tiuiune persouarum, lectari. The juge sacrilicium. 
 
 VOL. V. 19 
 
218 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 supperJ lie complains tliat, in liis time, this daily sacrifice had ceased, 
 as the vain people had generally, or for the most part, forsaken the 
 daily or frequent enjoyment of the supper, and approached it but once, 
 or hardly once in a year ; and then, in the case of many, it was done 
 not from devotion, but only from hypocrisy, or a sort of constraint, 
 ^vhich each laid on himself ; and it was already looked upon r.s an 
 abuse, to be always participating in the Lord's supper. There had 
 arisen a Judaizing set, who tried to dissuade the people from the prac- 
 tice of daily communion. He declaims against priests so destitute of 
 all love towards the Christian people,- who cruelly kept away tlie liun- 
 gry and thirsty flock from provisions which were their own,3 and who 
 set themselves to oppose others who took delight in feeding tlie poor. 
 He reminds his opponents of Gamaliel's language in the Acts of the 
 Apostles. The effects of frequent communion among tiie laity were 
 appealed to in defence of the practice and as a proof that the thing was 
 of God. In those priests who exhorted the people to frequent commu- 
 nion, he sees true Christian love ; and speaks of their animating influ- 
 ence on the laity. Desire for the frequent enjoyment of the commu- 
 nion, he said, was on the increase among the laity ; and it would con- 
 tinue to rise higher in proportion to the fervency of devotion among the 
 Christian people. We here meet with a remark relating to the incipi- 
 ent renovation of the religious life, which deserves notice. '' It is 
 already well known — he says — that the spirit of devotion and the 
 glow of charity is reviving among the communities, and the words of 
 our sermons rise to life again, because the Spirit of Jesus works in 
 them." He repels the insinuation, that the celebration of mass, in which 
 all partook spintuaJli/, the spiritual participation of the Lord's supper 
 in faith, is enough. It might suffice for an angel, but not for men, 
 composed of soul and body. If that were true, there was no need of 
 the incarnation of the Son of God, and the institution of the holy supper it- 
 self would be superfluous. He who voluntarily deprives himself of the 
 bodily enjoyment of the holy supper, deserves also to be deprived of 
 the spiritual enjoyment of it. *' For — says he — the experience of 
 every year teaches, that they who come to the communion but once a 
 year, or but seldom, do for the most part fail also to participate in the 
 res sacramenti ; for such persons come to the ordinance in the spirit 
 of bondage, and remain strangers to the holy joy, the sober bliss of the 
 spirit of Christ." 4 They shew it by this, that they look forward to that 
 day and that hour in a spirit of slavish fear, instead of hailing it with 
 joy. They are only driven to the observance by the custom of their 
 church and the prescription of their teachers ; and they rejoice when 
 the season is over, and do not wish for its return, thinking they are 
 now free to live as they list. They who esteemed themselves unworthy, 
 
 ' Propter quotidianam frcqucntiam et borare, sine foedere, sine pia ad populum 
 
 propter diutlilatem utrinsque s/>rc/e/, j)anis art'ectione. 
 
 et villi, a (piibus hoc sacriHcium intcgra- •' Plebcjis csurientibus et sitientihus su- 
 
 tur. Here we may perceive tliat the ne- um cihnm et potum crudeliter dcncf^ant. 
 cessitv of the two kinds is expressly as- * Accedunt enim tiniore servili, et in 
 
 suHied. nullo taU\s <;ustant spirituale ;;audiuiu vel 
 
 ' Impii, qui refugiunt, cum plebibus la- aliquid dulcedinis t^piriius Jesu. 
 
JAXOW'S WORK DE REGULIS V. ET N. T. 219 
 
 « 
 
 and abstained from the communion throui^h Immility, should be encour- 
 aged the more ; because they truly humbled themselves, they were 
 ■vv'orthy of being exalted by God. Christ came to bring down the lofty, 
 and lift up the lowly. He thinks that as worldly priests cared nothing 
 for the laity, and never invited them to the frequent enjoyment of the 
 holy supper, it would be no rashness in the latter to demand the en- 
 joyment of this bread which was meant for them. He refers to Christ's 
 words : He that is not ivith me, is a<jainst me ; he that gatheretlt not 
 with me, scattereth abroad. But that man is not with Jesus, who, 
 though bound to do so, yet neglects to provide for the salvation of those 
 souls°that seemed placed in his way. Was it objected, that the dig- 
 nity of the priests would suffer by so doing, he would answer : " The 
 man who speaks thus plainly evinces that he is a man actuated by a zeal 
 that is without knowledge, for he censures as an impropriety, what he 
 would certainly wish to take place if he were animated by the good 
 Spirit of God." He appeals to the words of Moses, who wished that 
 i\\i might be prophets. But these, filled with the spirit of envy, would be 
 lords.° When they complained of the zeal of the laity to enjoy frequent 
 communion, they resembled the Jews who said, " Perceive ye how ye 
 prevail nothing? behold, the world has gone after him I "^ (John 12 : 
 19.) He affirms that many of the laity were not inferior in virtue, in 
 meritorious works, in love of the sacraments, to the priests ; it was 
 here also true that soldiers, harlots, and publicans went into the king- 
 dom of heaven before the scribes and pharisees. Though laymen should 
 partake daily of the Lord's supper, yet they would not for this reason be 
 placed on a level with the priests ffor the laity would still be the peo- 
 ple, and the priests would, by virtue of their calling, still be set over 
 them. If, they said, The priests would be less reverenced, the direct 
 contrary would prove to be the fact, because the people, in the case 
 supposed, would be more attached to their priests, would cling to them 
 more closely as they received from them greater benefits and more fre- 
 quently, as the sheep cluster around their shepherds from whom they 
 receive their food ; so because the priests would be compelled to labor 
 more for their communities, to hear their confessions, and to bestow on 
 them the sacrament, whence would naturally spring up greater love 
 and gratitude towards them ; and because this love in them would be re- 
 newed, the Lord being in the midst of those gathered together, in his 
 name, he who produces in the hearts of subjects the obedience due to 
 their superiors ; and because it is the first and most excellent fruit of 
 this sacrament to bind the church (which is Christ's body) and its 
 members, each in its own place, with Christ. Such was the power of 
 this sacrament to make the multitude of the people one. It was now 
 objected that the case of priests ditfered from that of laymen ; because 
 priescs were, by their office, obliged continually to hold mass ; hence 
 they were the more excusable if they were not always prepared to par- 
 take worthily of the supper. To this he replies : they sinned not the 
 less, but far more by their unworthy participation, because the charac- 
 ter, the position and caUing of unworthy priests, were a great griev- 
 ance. He attacks those famous men who had taught in their writings 
 
220 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 that women in particular ought to be discouiaged from frequAit com- 
 munion ; he opposes to them the Christian principle that all such dis- 
 tinctions are annulled in the new creation ; as it Is said, One Father, 
 one Spirit, one faith, one Lord, one baptism for all. "Weakness was no 
 reason for such exclusion ; for God had chosen tha weak things of the 
 "W'orld to confound the things that are mighty. lie next speaks against 
 the prohibition put forth probably in the year 1389, by the synod of 
 Prague, against the frequent communion of the laity ; ^ and remarks : 
 *' Thf\==c modern hypocrites, doctors and prelates, who live without God, 
 know not wh.at they are about, and what sort of an ordinance the con- 
 tinual sacrifice of the Lord in the church is." It was so called, not be- 
 cause the priests continually celebrated and enjoyed it, but because the 
 holv church offers and enjoys it in common. lie a])peals to Christ's 
 words, which are addressed to all : Take and eat. He retorts the ob- 
 jection drawn from the words of the apostle Paul respecting unworthy 
 j)artici[)ation. The apostle docs not discourage Christians generally 
 from daily jjartakiug of the holy supper, but the unworthy, that they 
 might make themselves worthy of it, and take more pains to sanctify 
 themselves for it. lie admonishes them ; he does not dissuade, but 
 teaches in what way they ought to present and enjoy this sacrament. 
 
 On this subject Matthias of Janow composed an express treatise in 
 the form of a letter. He explains why he complied with his friend's 
 invitation that he should write something on the matter in question. 
 *' For — says he — I bethink me thou must be concerned for the welfare 
 of thy neighbors, and especially of the common people, since thou art 
 desirous they should all be more often united to Christ by partaking 
 of his precious body and blood ; which certainly must come from thy 
 good heart through the working of the Holy Spirit ; for I was also inci- 
 ted to write something on this subject by the false zeal of some." He 
 then mentions the various motives and reasons which influenced those 
 who opposed the daily communion of the laity. *' Some — he says 
 — carry an outward show of zeal for the Lord, yet not witli knowl- 
 edge ; and they pretend that they would thereby preserve the reve- 
 rence which is due to the sacrament. "These — he saj's — entertain 
 ing too carnal views of the sacrament, fear where there is no reason for 
 fear, lest our Lord Jesus should sufter anew, in this sacrament, some 
 violence, or contemjtt, or injury ; whereas our Lord having once died, 
 death hath no more power over him in any way ; for, in giving his now 
 spiritual body, which is no longer cajiable of suflering, to the whole 
 world and to each individual, richly to enjoy, he nevertheless suffers no 
 change in himself. They evince their sympathy with the Lord Jesus 
 too foolishly in this, that they are so hard towards their neighbors. 
 Thev are cruel towards the members of Christ. Those foolish and un- 
 faithful servants, who are set over but a few things, are friends to those 
 who lead bad lives, and by their bad lives every day throw contempt 
 on the sacrament, and they favor their party. Others fear to extend 
 this sacrament to the people, lest they should hazard the safety of their 
 
 ' See further on p. 233. 
 
JANOW'S WORK DE REGULIS V. ET N. T. 221 
 
 own souls." Christ, however, had presented the sacrament to tlie un- 
 worthy Judas, and the church had never decreed that any not un- 
 worthy could be kept back from the enjoyment of the holy supper. 
 He argues, on the other hand, that even though the laity should par- 
 take of the communion but once a-year, there might still be many 
 among them unworthy. Others — says he — do not enter upon any 
 such arguments, but contend only from love of strife and the heat of 
 passion, against the frequent communion of the laity. He next men- 
 tions those who proudly despised the poor among the people, and were 
 afraid that by frequent communion they would be put too much on a 
 level with themselves.^ He quotes some of their characteristic language : 
 " Those Beghards and Beguins are striving hard to put themselves on 
 a level with the priests." He says of them : " They desire not to 
 know that to all Christ's faithful it has been said. Ye are a royal priest- 
 hood ;" and he brings up the passages referring to this point in the 
 Apocalypse. In attacking the wall of separation erected by the hie- 
 rarchy between clergy and laity, and bringing distinctly up to notice 
 the work of the Holy Spirit among laymen, he does not forget to apply 
 the same principles of reasoning also to the female sex. He notices the 
 fact that, in his time, there were women of distinguished piety, whose 
 lives presented a strong contrast to the corrupt world. " As before, 
 — he says — in comparing laymen with monks and priests, it was re- 
 remarked that our Lord having rejected the wise of this world on ac- 
 count of their pride and hypocrisy, would the more abundantly reveal 
 his salvation to the little ones among the people ; so, in comparing 
 men and women, something similar might be said with regard to the 
 recipiency of the latter for the gifts of Christ. Whereas men commonly, 
 at the present time, conscious of their natural gifts, do not know how to 
 humble themselves and to bear the reproach of Christ ; or if they have 
 the advantage in some gifts of grace, directly ascribe it, in their self- 
 complacency, to efforts of their own, and so do not prove loyal to the 
 Lord Jesus Chrjst; therefore God and Jesus Christ, forsaking such men, 
 transfers his treasures to women ; for he has chosen the weak 
 things of the world to confound the' things which are mighty (1 Cor. 
 1: 27). And hence women are to be found in these times, virgins and 
 widows, who zealously do penance, hasten to the holy sacraments, and 
 take the kingdom of God before the men, who are occupied with 
 the vanities of this world. Hence we may observe, how the ordinary 
 women fill the churches at prayers, occupy the seats at sermons, 
 present themselves before the priests for confession, seem to be full of 
 sobs and tears, receive daily, in constant devotion and with joy, the 
 holy supper, forsake the pomp of the world together with its pleasures, 
 are ever abounding in love to Christ, ever thinking on the cause of the 
 Lord, and joyfully and thankfully receiving manifestations and visions 
 of the Lord. Thus the women are a hundred fold more rich in spirit- 
 ual blessings, in these times, than the men." He then refers to the 
 
 ' Hi sunt, qui ferme quemlibet de plebe plebeios audaciter nuncupando. 
 dedignantur, bcstias et Ribaldos pauperes 
 
 19* 
 
222 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRIXE. 
 
 examples of Tllldegard, of Brigitt in Sweden, and of many other women 
 ■whom he had known in Paris, Rome, and Nuremberg,^ and of still more 
 in Prague ; "and how I admired the Lord Jesus in his works." 2 
 " They — says he — who admire, the rich men of this world because 
 they can gain a good deal out of them, are priests to whose eyes the 
 mighty monarch of this world appears as one to be feared and reve- 
 renced, even though he bo a man of crime, but who abuse and despise 
 them that fear God. When a rich man comes to such, and asks them 
 to hear his confession, or to oifer him the sacraments, how readily 
 and cheerfully do they bestow tliem on him. But when the poor of the 
 flock beg them to hear their confessions and give them the communion, 
 they do it with difficulty and after long delay, and as if they were tired 
 of the business ; but if they demand the sacraments of the church re- 
 peatedly, these men begin to mutter that they give them the headache, 
 or to complain that they take up too much of their time, and finally 
 the poor are repelled away, not without signs of impatience." He main- 
 tains that " every Christian to whom the frequent or dally spiritual par- 
 ticipation of the body of Christ is granted, will also be in a suitable 
 frame for the frequent or daily enjoj^ment of the communion, because 
 he who is worthy of that which is granted only to the holy, is also 
 ■worthy of that "vvhich is granted alike to the bad and the good. 
 This spiritual participation through devotion and faith, is a thing 
 which God alone produces in man ; as Christ himself says : It is the 
 spirit that maketh alive, the flesh profiteth nothing. But in the dis- 
 tribution of the holy supper, which serves to the increase of grace in 
 those who worthily partake, the minister of the church is the cooperat- 
 ing agent." Again : " What the Holy Ghost has wrought in a human 
 soul, no man should destroy. But the fervor of devotion is what the 
 Holv Ghost has wrouiz;ht, and hence the hun^erin;^; and thirstinur after 
 the frequent enjoyment of the Lord's supper. For assuredly this 
 thirsting after the sacrament, which arises from the devotion of foith, 
 is itself a work of the Holy Ghost," and he cites the words of Christ 
 in which he invites every one that thirsteth to himself. " This thirsting 
 — he observes — is certainly one way in which the Father draweth to 
 the Son. This work of the Holy Ghost, this drawing of the Father to 
 the Son, is what he would destroy who presumes in any way what- 
 ever to forbid it." Referring to the words of St. Peter in Acts 10 : 
 47, he finely remarks : " Who will dare refuse the bodily sacrament to 
 those, on whom the spiritual grace has been bestowed by God him- 
 self? Hence it follows, certainlv, that everv Christian -who has that 
 faith in Christ, which works by love, may often worthily receive the 
 body of Christ ; every one who believingly attends mass, and who 
 devoutly, with heart and lips, confesses himself a sinner, is worthy of 
 it, and it is fur his benefit that he should partake at the mass of the 
 
 * Wc are here reminded that Nurem- was some connection between the Friends 
 
 berg was a seat of the Friends of God, and of God in this district and the Friends of 
 
 of Margaret Ehnerin and her connection reform in Bohemia. 
 
 with Henry of Xurdlingen. Vid. Herman- '■' See Jonhm, Vorlaufer des Hussiten* 
 
 ni Opuscula pag. 331 sq. Perhaps there thums in Bohmen. S. 62. 
 
JANOW'S WORK DE REGULIS V. ET X. T. 223 
 
 body of Christ." But few, and those notorious sinners, should be 
 excluded from the communion ; as for example, adulterers, harlots, 
 usurers. But such persons when excluded should be publicly named ; 
 80 that the faithful may understand that no fellow.^liip is to be had 
 with such in the sacraments, and avoid tlie contagions of their bad 
 example. They too who give public scandal by their vices ou;^ht, on 
 every Sunday to be publicly and solemnly named, and debarred from 
 the sacraments.^ He places in the same class such as go indecently 
 or too extravagantly dressed, which is an evident mark of pride, so 
 that no reasonable ground of excuse can be oifered for it. lie refers 
 to an ordinance relating to this matter put forth by the archbishop of 
 Prague ,3 and to another by Pope Urban VI, the promulgation of 
 which had been witnessed by himself during his residence in Italy.- 
 He affirms that beginners and those moving forward in the christian 
 life stand in more need of the sacraments than the perfect, for in- 
 stance the saints in bliss. He compares the communication of Christ 
 in the holy supper with milk offered to babes. Thus the incarnate 
 "Word lets himself down to man's wants and weaknesses, mystically 
 communicating himself to them under the outward forms of bread and 
 wine. 4 Thus it happens that the believer, who partakes only of bread 
 ami wine, and, by this act in itself considered, experiences no spiritual 
 enjoyment, but is brought in contact with the forms of bread and wine 
 only with his senses, cannot fail by earnest striving to attain to such a 
 frame as to imbibe the sweet spirit of devotion into his inmost soul, 
 and to taste and see how good the Lord is ; ^ and thus he is nourished 
 and strengthened and refreshed in spirit. This is, for mankind, a 
 rock ; a rock of refreshment for him to whom it has been given to 
 suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock : a flinty 
 rock to carnal minded men, who perceive not, in this venerable sacra- 
 ment, the things of the Spirit of God ; " and for this reason they lightly 
 esteem it, and take no pains to secure the frequent enjoyment of it ; 
 they make no haste to this holy supper." It is the flintiest rock to 
 the Jews and the Greeks, to him who believes not, and says. How can 
 this man give us his flesh to eat? (John vi). " But to us, who are 
 in Christ Jesus, and beheve God, and in him have tasted the good word 
 
 ' Quales sunt, qui deportant calceos ro- caro factum, et miro modo composuit in 
 
 stratos in pedibus, auruin et argentum ro- eucharistia, ut essent manna absconditura 
 
 bis, cornuti in pedibus in barbis et onines et omnis multitude dulcedinis sacramento 
 
 induti veste bottata et pcregrina. sub speciebus . panis et vini abscondita, 
 
 ^ Jam nostris temporibus archiepiscopus quemadmodum lac puero matris ejus cela- 
 
 Pragensis Johannes publico excommuni- tum est in mamillis, et veluti puer nullum 
 
 cari praecepit hujusmodi filios Belial, qui vestigium lactis videns suis oculis, labori- 
 
 defcndebant rostra in calceis et cornutas ose sugens ubero, in intimis suis dulcedi- 
 
 vestes et impudicas; nam tempore, quo nem percipit, quandoque pascitur et valde 
 
 scribo, coram Jesu sum testis illius, et sta- delectatur. 
 
 bam ante foras templi, vetans tales ana- ^ Ita prorsus quilibet fidelis nulla suavi- 
 
 themate percussos divinis officiis interesse. tate speciem Jesu ab eo in hoc sacramen- 
 
 ^ See above, page 192. to percipiens, sed solum species panis et 
 
 * Corpus domini et sanguis est lac da- vini sensil)us suis tractans, tum per cona- 
 
 tum pueris, ut sugerent, lac de petra ole- tus et laborem interioris hominis sugit 
 
 umque de saxo durissimo, quia verbum hunc devotionis spiritum suavem in me- 
 
 caro factum est, ut homo sic panem angel- dullis suae auimae, et degustat, quam suu- 
 
 orum manducaret, sicque digessit verbum vis est dominus. 
 
224 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 of the Lord, to us it is sweet indeed as the mother's nourishing breast.'* 
 The laity were often more worthy by reason of their free spontaneous 
 longing, than mere priests by vocation. The faithful, god-worthy long- 
 ing of such laymen was evidenced by this, that nothing could keep them 
 back ; they forsook everything in this world, their homes, their yokes 
 of oxen,i their wives. " All that was gain to them, they counted as 
 loss, that they might so win Christ, by often and gladly partaking of 
 his body and blood." He goes on to describe the longing of these 
 pious laymen, and to show what sacrifices they made to satisfy it. 
 *' They demand it humbly of their priests if it can be done ; and, if 
 refused, they press them with still more importunity, begging, adjur- 
 ing them, and requiring it of them till they grow tiresome. And when 
 they find themselves repulsed in every way by the inferior clergy, 
 from ignorance, negligence, or pride, they apply next to priests of a 
 higher degree, to the bishops and their officials, and never cease, 
 timid as they may be, unpleasant as they may find the duty, to urge 
 and entreat, that they would procure for them a more frequent pre- 
 sentation of the Lord." lie affirms that no un worthiness of the Christ - 
 ian, if he be but conscious of it, and make confession of it, can unfit 
 him for the frequent or daily enjoyment of the communion. The con- 
 trary rather holds good. If a person deems himself worthy or holy, 
 and boasts of being so, this makes the Christian unworthy ; for it is 
 pride and the worst kind of hypocrisy .2 Any Christian who in this 
 present life held himself to be worthy of the daily communion, and 
 professed as much of himself, whatever position that Christian might 
 hold, and however much he might surpass others in virtue, and who 
 looked upon others as unworthy, that man was alone and especially 
 unworthy. The holy supper appears to him to be the highest act of 
 worship, one with which nothing else was to be compared ; and if it 
 "was objected that yet the celebration of the high festivals consisted in 
 song and prayer, and the grand and imposhig variety of holy ceremo- 
 nies ; he replied. Still all this was not to be compared with the act of 
 partaking of the festival of the Lord in spirit and in truth. All this, 
 says he, song, prayer, preaching is but a preparation for the festival, 
 and a certain participation in the fellowship with Christ ; but after all 
 it was not the true and spiritual festival of Christ, for it was not the 
 bread that came down from heaven. He says : " Nominal Christians, 
 ■worldly Christians, those of a carnal mind, who have not the Spirit of 
 Christ, never partake freely, with great desire and thankful heart, of 
 the body of Christ ; but, as often as they come to the sacrament, it is 
 done with constraint, through the force of a custom observed from child- 
 hood, or from slavish fear." He compares the way in which the Chris- 
 tian assimilates this spiritual food and takes it up into his being, with 
 
 ' Doulttless with .illusion to the excuses crebra communione, scd magis c contra- 
 offered in the parable of the marriage sup- rio : oninis dignitas moralis credita vel 
 per. confessa de se ipso dignitas vel sanctitas, 
 
 * Est hie advcrtcndum, quod omnis in- ilia niniis tacit indignum Christianum, 
 
 dignitas in Christiano allegabilis undecun- quia est superbia et hypocrisis pessiina, 
 
 que, si est cognita et confessa in veritate, coeca ct meudosa. 
 non facit eum indignum quotidiana vel 
 
JANOW'S WORK DE REGULIS V. ET N. T. 225 
 
 the assimilating process in the case of natural food. " Tlie sinner — he 
 gays — is at the first unlike Jesus Chriit; l)ut, by degrees, taster or 
 slower, the life and spirit of the sinful man become transformed nito the 
 spirit and life of Jesus Christ, and pass into tlie most intimate union 
 >vith him, no longer to be separated by any human power." lie cites 
 a remark from St. Augustin, where the latter represents Christ as say- 
 ing, in relation to the holy supper, It is not thou who art to irans- 
 fom me into thyself, as the food for thy body, but thou a.'t to be 
 transformed into me. " And this is preeminently the way ia which 
 God is glorified, and wonderfully appears in his saints, that that Word, 
 from whom all things have S[)rung, in whom and h?/ whom are all 
 things, — of whom it is said, that he shall at last be all in all, — does 
 in this way draw back again and transform all things into himself." i 
 He then complains that the holy supper should in his own days be 
 so commonly neglected among Christians, that they no longer earnest- 
 ly endeavored to have their spirit transformed into the life and Spirit 
 of Christ, but rather hindered it. It seemed to be tlien- great end 
 and aim to have a comfortable and quiet life in the world. They did 
 not strive to be transformed into Christ, but longed and labored, as 
 much as in them lay, that Christ should be transformed into them- 
 selves ; they sought not to become like to Jesus Christ, but desired 
 rather that Jesus Christ should be like to themselves : 2 which was 
 the greatest imaginable wrong, the very sin of Lucifer. It was a 
 thing unworthy of this glorious sacrament, to think of compelling men 
 to partake of it. This never should be done except in the case of 
 those weak Christians who ventured not to come. He blames those 
 that advised people of a wicked life to keep away from the sacrament ; 
 for it could in nowise profit them to persevere in their wicked life, 
 and, for this reason, continue to be strangers to the remedy which was 
 the safest for them. Such unworthy persons therefore should rather 
 be advised to leave ofi" their wicked life, and in company with the 
 saints go frequently to the Lord's festival. He declares his disagree- 
 ment with the advice commonly given that every man should examine 
 himself, and, if he found himself unworthy, abstain from the Lord's 
 supper. In opposition to this, he cites the words of St. Paul, 1 Cor. 
 11 : 28, and lays emphasis on the phrase. Let a man examine himself 
 and so let Mm eat, — not, and so let him abstain. He seems also to 
 infer from these words, that this self examination was to serve only as 
 a preparation to enable one worthily to partake of the holy supper. 
 He notices another objection : It suffices to receive the holy sacra- 
 ment but once ; for at this one time we receive all. To this he re- 
 
 ' Quod illud verbum, ex quo omnia, in ad hoc se ponunt, ut bonam vitam, scu 
 quo omnia et per quod omnia, quod ulti- delicatam et quietam halieant in lioc muu- 
 mo dicitur esse omnia in omnibus, tali do. Non laborant in Christum commu- 
 modo et via in se ipsum iterum couvertit tari, sed cupiunt et quantum in so est, fa- 
 ct digerit omnia. ciunt, Christum in se ipsos converti, non 
 
 ^ Nee satagunt, digne ritam suam car- desidcrant esse Christi Jesu similes, sed 
 
 nalem et spiritum suum vacuum et inan- Christum Jesum cupiunt esse simiiem sibi 
 
 em converti in vitam et spiritum Jesu ipsis. 
 Christi, quinimo impediunt, quia de facto 
 
2*26 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 plies : God has given it to his Son alone, to have life in himself so as 
 never to be in need of receiving it anew ; but for all creatures it is not 
 enough to have received life once ; the life thus received, in order to 
 be preserved, needs to be constantly communicated anew from above ; 
 and in order that it mav be thus communicated, in order that the 
 natural life in created beinii;s mav be continuallv renewed in them, 
 they require food. But, this holds good too of the true, divine, and 
 blessed life. It is not enouiih that it should have once been commu- 
 nicated from above through the medium of faith and baptism ; for the 
 maintenance of the same, it was requisite that it should ever be given 
 to them anc^v from the Father, by the Son, in the Holy Ghost, through 
 the medium of the Lord's supper.' " Although — says he — our Lord 
 gives to Christians the beginning of a life of grace, a blessed life, 
 through faith, as it is written. The just sluiU live by faith, and through 
 baptism ; yet he has in his infinite wisdom ordaiued this sacrament, 
 and directed Christians to repeat it daily, or at least often, for the 
 purpose of preserving or continuing this life of grace. The Christian, 
 veil-grounded in the faith, ought to know that Jesus the crucified is 
 the beginning and the end of his life of grace, in the general and in 
 the particular, because, without him, he can do nothing." 2 We may 
 understand from these words how Matthias of Janow apprehended 
 the relation of the holy supper to baptism ; that through the Lord's 
 supper, the divine hfe once received in baptism, should be renewedly 
 and ever more completely appropriated in communion with Christ, till 
 it should thoroughly interpenetrate the entire human nature. 
 
 Accordingly, to the objection that since eternal Hfe is communicated 
 in the Lord's supper, it is enough to have received it once, he replies : 
 *' This does not fullow ; for God, in his infinite providence, has not so 
 ordained it ; but rather thus, that the man who seeks it, and in spirit 
 partakes of it daily, should possess it." He employs the following illus- 
 tration : " The sun continually gives out his light and comumnicates 
 that element to our eyes ; but he that would take the sunlight into his 
 eyes and enjoy the blessing of it, must have his eyes turned to the 
 light, and be susceptible of its influences ; and he must conaiaathj re- 
 ceive the light from the sun, or as often as he would use it. But if he 
 shuts his eyes, or from some accident ceases to receive the light con- 
 stantly radiating from the sun, he shortly loses the whole, nor is a par- 
 
 * Est diligentcr notandum, quod deus turac vivcnti secundum suam spccialem 
 
 pater soli uni;_'enito filio dcdit, vitam lia- sapicntiain atquc suaritatoin onlin.ivit ci- 
 
 bere in seinct ipso ab acterno ct sul)stan- bum et apposuit, ut sic per cilti sui proprii 
 
 tialiter. et nulli altcrac (?) creaturae, scd crebram vel continuam sumptionem conti- 
 
 quia omiics creaturae acc-ipient participa- iiuaret delcetabiliter et suaviter suam vi- 
 
 tionem suae vitae a deo per filium in spi- tain. 
 
 ritu sancto, et (juod omnes creaturae ac- ^ Licet dominus dat principium vitae 
 cepta vita a deo, specialiter vita beatitica ^^ratuitaeet t»eatificae Christiaiiis per tidem, 
 ct perpetua, de qua liic sermo, necessc ba- sicut scriptum est: Justus :iutcm meus ex 
 berent, earn accipere a deo suo, et <piod tide vivit. et ])er baptisinum, tanien cum 
 non sufHcit semel accipere vitam suam a hoc ex immensa sua sapientia et bonitate 
 deo in praesenti, sed necessc hal)et conti- ordinavit. hoc sacramcntuin altaris et sta- 
 nue rcspiccre, et pro vita sua conservaiida tuit Cbristiauis it( raiidinu quotidie aut 
 Ct continuanda, et deum solum re(iuirere alias saepe ad eandem vitam gratiae con- 
 ad hoc. Igitur per hoc deus omni crea- servandam et contiiiuandum. 
 
JANOW'S WORK DE REGULIS V. ET N. T. 227 
 
 tide to be had till he turns once more to the snn." lie calls the holy 
 supper the food, which has been prepared for and given to men wounded, 
 weak, and blind, to unclean sinners, to those who sigh and mourn over 
 their sins. He complains of the clergy who were not willing to distrib- 
 ute to these the food designed expressly for their use, but reserved it 
 for angels, waited for angels, waited for such as led an angel-like life, 
 to come and appropriate it ; or who would only partake of it for them- 
 selves, because they were called the angels for the people, or were set 
 over them as such ; when the truth was. they were neither like the an- 
 gels, nor set over them, but had been taken from that sinful race of man, 
 and were set among sinful men, and over them. " Such bad stew- 
 ards — he says — crush to the earth, in their way of prescribing and 
 of administering penance, the little ones in Christ, by a wisdom which, 
 as it comes not from the Spirit of our most loving and bounteous Saviour, 
 must needs be called a fleshly wisdom. It was their fault that such 
 persons fell back into sin, torn away as they were, so cruelly and vio- 
 lently, from the breast of their mother. He taxes them, namely, with 
 troubling the consciences of these persons by requiring of them too se- 
 vere a life, and laying on their necks intolerable burdens. He condemns 
 the current opinion that it was quite sufficient for christian laymen, if, 
 after the preparation of the fasts, they partook of the communion once 
 at Easter festival. " When those days are over — says he — they soon 
 forget the whole, and fall back again into their old vain habits of life. 
 They relax from the holy discipline they had commenced, and begin 
 once more to put themselves on a level with this vain world, so that the 
 man is scarcely if ever to be found, who, after having gone through his 
 penance and received the holy sacrament, perseveres in the right way, 
 and worthily reforms his life according to the requirements of Chris- 
 tianity." To such outside repentance he applies what Christ says of the 
 evil spirit driven from a man and then returning with seven others still 
 worse than himself. The poor people are thus led to suppose that 
 things forbidden are to be avoided only on fast days, that at 
 these seasons alone penance is necessary to be done, and that it suf- 
 fices, for salvation, to confess one's sins and receive the body and blood 
 of the Lord, without once thinking of his passion, or voluntarily suf- 
 fering with him. "But with all this, they hold fast to the freedom of the 
 flesh, conform in all else to this world, love the world and that which 
 is of it the whole day. The same christian people — he says — think 
 they are safely in Christ when, in carnal security, they have observed 
 according to custom, the things of rehgion, without any of the true life 
 and spirit of Jesus the crucified. 0, blindness of Israel ! — he ex- 
 claims — 0, fatal mistake ! which, if it were possible, might deceive 
 even God's elect : 0, deceitful and partial spirit of Satan ; and alas ! 
 for the sufferings of the saints, who truly repent, who on account of this 
 communion are insulted and despised by their seemingly pious breth- 
 ren, and accused of heresy!" He then refers back to an example 
 which had been cited against him, to the case of those old eremites, 
 who could only receive the holy supper at rare intervals, and remarks : 
 " With these persons, it was altogether another affair ; they had lived 
 
228 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 an an^el-like life ; and what might be true of them, could not be ap- 
 plied to those, who were placed amid the conflicts of the world. Those 
 eremites had no priest to distribute the Lord's supper to them. In 
 such cases, the Lord Christ is ever wont to supply, by his own presence, 
 the absence of priests. To the objection that a special prcj^aration is 
 necessary in order to worthy participation in the communion, he replies : 
 The preparation of souls for this festival, does not require a forty- 
 days' fast ; for the spirit of a Christian must be one ever pressing on- 
 ward, never retrograding ; one ever rising in aspiration and prayer to 
 God ; ever open to divine impressions. " But even suppose the spirit not 
 to be in this right state of preparation ; yet it may transport itself at 
 once into the proper frame. For spirit and will are not bound to time 
 or to place. For to these conditions men's bodies are subject, but not 
 the soul and Sfiirit ; the latter perform their actions in a sphere out of 
 Space and time." ^ 
 
 "' The activity of the spirit and especially when turned upon spirit- 
 ual tilings, excludes the train of successive motions ; for it proceeds 
 from that which is incapable of division and relates to that which is 
 incapable of division and above space and time, which introduce suc- 
 cession.-. Next, a worthy preparation cannot proceed from the spirit 
 of man, but must proceed rather from the spirit of Christ, which is 
 omnipotent, and in which therefore no division of successive moments 
 can find place in matters pertaining to its own essence, namely, spirit- 
 ual things. What is said in Holy Scripture of the paschal lamb once 
 offered, has reference only to the one sacrifice offered by Christ ; but 
 fiir from us be the thought that Christians are to celebrate the memory 
 of Christ's passion only once a year, — a remembrance which ought on 
 the contrary to be uninterruptedly present to their minds. "3 He sup- 
 poses the case of a priest who should say to a person wishing to re- 
 ceive the communion. Go away ; for to-day thou art unworthy ; and 
 come back worthier to-morrow or in a week ; in the place of such a 
 person he would reply, I know I am unworthy ; therefore it is that I 
 come be";i:in;j!; and trembling to thee ; because thou hast received in 
 my behalf from my God and Jesus Christ the power to render me 
 worthy who am unworthy, since by thy prayer thou canst absolve me, 
 and by giving me my portion of our daily bread, canst change me into 
 the same ; and all that pertains to the making me worthy of that bread 
 I have already, in my perfect will ; for to will is present >Yith me, but 
 how to perform that which is good, I find not. But all that which the 
 spirit must further produce out of me and in me, I hope to find in 
 that daily bread. Tlierefore I beg of you to give me this day our dai- 
 ly bread, and am in haste for it. Thus strengthened and enlightened, 
 
 * Qiiodsi forte est sj»iritus in eo non successive, quoniara sunt indivisihilium ad 
 
 praepniatus, tunc spiiitus potest subito in(livi>il)ilia supra locum et tempus, quae 
 
 jjraepaiari, turn quia .spiritus scu mens aut dcfcrunt successioncm. 
 
 voluntas non requiiit tempus, non locum ; ^ Absit autem hoc a Christianis, quod 
 
 his enim corpora sunt suKjccta. non mens, debeant solum semel in anno agere me- 
 
 non spiritus hominis, sed omnino suas moriam dominicae passionis, quae conti- 
 
 0})erationes ap,unt extra tempus et locum, nuis momentis debet iu ipsorum pectori- 
 
 "^ Turn quia actus mentis et spiritus, bus demorari. 
 praecipue quoad divina, sunt sine motu 
 
JANOW S WORK DE REGULIS V. ET N. T. 229 
 
 and made alive In Christ, I shall in him find a way to accomplish what 
 is already present in my will. But if thou deemest me not worthy 
 today to receive from thee the daily bread, as I am today unworthy, 
 so neither wilt thou present it to me to-morrow ; because neither to- 
 morrow, nor the next day, nor ever, so long as I live in this body of 
 death and sin, shall I be worthy enough of this our heavenly bread, 
 so far as that itself is concerned. He stands up for the pious lay- 
 men who demanded with importunity the daily communion, and vindi- 
 cating them from the reproach of rashness, declares it rather a. work 
 of tlie grace of God and of necessity. " As regards the former — 
 says he — I assume it to be well known, that the longing to partake 
 of Christ's body and blood, from faith and love, does not spring from 
 fiesli and blood, and cannot spring from them ; but only from the ope- 
 ration of divine grace or from the spirit of Jesus Christ." He pro- 
 ceeds to speak of those who, bowed down under a sense of their sins, 
 dare not come forward to partake of the holy supper, and remarks 
 that persons in this temper of mind, who are so deeply penetrated 
 with the sense of their own un worthiness, are the most worthy of all. 
 " Hence that person — he says — is in the end filled with still greater 
 love and ardent longing for the Lord Jesus, who at the very time he 
 falls into such divers temptations, flies to the Lord Jesus, and hurries 
 to his sacrament, and though all would frighten him from It, still an- 
 swers : Against him only have I sinned, and done evil in his sight, 
 and therefore I fly to Idin alone ; for though he slay me, yet will I 
 trust in him, and though he thrust me down to hell, still I know that 
 even in this he does what Is best, for he cannot do wrong ; and I trust 
 that he will also bring me out the pit, He who alone casteth down to 
 hell, and bringeth up therefrom," In this he sees the character of 
 true love, which casteth out fear, which Is stronger than death, which 
 many waters cannot quench nor floods drown. When in opposition to 
 these views was held up the necessity of submission to ecclesiastical 
 order, the direction of Christ to his disciples to observe and do what- 
 soever was bidden them by those who sat in Moses' seat, he answered : 
 " Yes, if they build up the communities and put forth godly com- 
 mands ; but if they knowingly pull them down, and teach men to sin, 
 we are by no means bound to obey them in these things, but ought 
 rather to follow the Inward anointing, which teacheth all things, or the 
 spirit of Jesus Christ, who Is everywhere, and especially In God's 
 children, whom he himself directly guides, as the only teacher and 
 true shepherd." It was necessary to obey God rather than men, to 
 try the spirits to see whether they were of God. He aflirms, that the 
 primitive priest following Christ's example had always first taken the 
 holy supper himself, and then distributed it to the others in order. 
 Such had continued to be the practice from the time of the Apostles 
 for the period of a thousand years, until in these more recent times, 
 through the Increase and spread of sin, this perpetual sacrifice had 
 been abolished. To the objection that the spiritual participation was 
 sufficient he answers : " It is something greater, something more per- 
 manently for the saving good of the Christian to eat and drink the in- 
 
 VOL. V. 20 
 
230 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 carnate word In the most inward and real manner, than to hear and 
 beheve his words. The truth did not declare that He who speaketh 
 or he- who heareth my words, the same shall abide in me and I in him ; 
 but Christ repeatedly says : He that eateth my flesh and drinketh mj 
 blood remaineth in me and I in him." It was objected by opponents, 
 that the holy supper would by too frequent use become too every-day 
 an aflfiir, and lose its true significance. To this he replies : " Never 
 will Christians grow weary of it ; on the other hand, the longer they 
 intermit it, the more will the holy longing for it abate in them, and the 
 pains which they wo\ild otherwise take to enjoy it diminish. Another 
 delight, the lust of the flesh, will take possession of the soul, darken 
 it, and cause it to forget that holy joy in the sacrament. By worldli- 
 ness the spirit is rendered daily more unfit for receiving the holy sup- 
 per." This truth he finds typified in the behavior of the Jews with 
 the manna ; when they longed after the flcshpots and cucumbers of 
 Egypt, the manna was no longer relished ; and when they arrived in 
 the land of promise, and began to busy themselves with cultivating the 
 fruits of the earth, the manna was taken from them. A simple spirit- 
 ual participation was sufficient, and might be substituted for the bodily, 
 where the longing was present, but for unavoidable reasons could not 
 be satisfied. " By special privilege — he says — not according to the 
 common rule, Christ himself brings about in the most hidden manner 
 the spiritual participation of his body by those of whom he knows it to 
 be true, that they worthily long to partake of his body, and would 
 gladly receive it every day, and pray for it, in their prayers to God in 
 the Paternoster and in those of men, the ministers of the church, — 
 Christians who when they cannot enjoy the privilege of the sacrament, 
 mourn and sigh over the deprivation with an unendurable hunger and 
 thirst, such and such alone does the spirit of Christ visit directly, when 
 and where he pleases, causing them by virtue of his own grace to 
 manducate spiritually and bodily, sometimes in the mass, sometimes 
 after the mass, morning or evening, by night or by day, in a secret and 
 invisible manner." ^ He reaffirms it over and over that pious laymen 
 stood in no respect whatever inferior to the priests as proper subjects 
 for the enjoyment of the Lord's supper, but frequently surpassed them 
 in holy simplicity and innocence. In partaking of that sacrament the 
 most important qualification was great simplicity of faith ; hence all 
 human science served rather to distract and dissipate, to destroy devo- 
 tion, fervency of the affections, and stability of faith.^ It is evident 
 
 I Illis (lico spiritus Jesu manduoationem vult et cum vult, ex sua jxratia facicns ip- 
 
 sui corporis spiritualem ex sinj^^ulari pri- sos corporaliter spiritualittr maiuliR-are, 
 
 vilegio, non ex coinmuni pacto ct ordina- aliquando in inissa, aliquando post mis- 
 
 tione solusmct operatur intime, quos ipse sam, post prandium, do mane, de vcspere, 
 
 videt. quam dijrnc atit-ctant Christi corpus in nocte vel in die, latentcr et occulte. 
 niandueare et vellent onini die, et hoc ro- ' .Simplicitate sancta et innoceniia, quo 
 
 gant et apud deum in oratione dominica ad hoc ipsis plebejis sutfragante praeiipue 
 
 cf 'M'"/! j'^J'ii'"fs ct ministros ccdesiac, et circa heatiHcuni altaris sacramentura, ubi 
 
 si fieri ipsis sacrainciitaliter non potest, rc(iuiiitur maxima simpiicitas sanctae tidei 
 
 dolent et ingemiscunt. fame et siti vexati, (.'liristianae ; et omnis scicntia humana 
 
 in spiritu suo et necessitate male paticn- ideo magis il>idcm veiiit ad dissipatioiiem, 
 
 tcs ; talihus igitur solum occurrit spirit Jesu devotionis et caritatis destnictionem et in 
 
 Christi, et plurimum si vult et quaudo credeudo tirmitatem. 
 
JANOW'S WORK DE REGULIS V. ET N. T. 231 
 
 from the passages above cited that Matthias of Janow constantly pre- 
 supposes no difference to exist, as to the privilege of the full enjoy- 
 ment of the holy supper in both kinds, between priests and laymen ; 
 and he expressly points to the sacrifices of the Old Testament as ante- 
 types of this sacrament in as far as both forms belonged to its com- 
 pleteness and integrity ;i and, as he says, that the wliole multitude 
 should taste the sweetness of the sacrament that is hidden beneath the 
 species of bread and wine, it follows that in his view the whole multi- 
 tude should partake of both forms of the Lord's supper.^ 
 
 Matthias of Janow, as we have already remarked in passing, men- 
 tions among the signs of the time which indicated the degeneracy of 
 the church, and announced the coming in of Antichrist, the schism 
 between the two popes ; and in common with many of the best men of his 
 age he regarded this schism as a symptom of the distempered condition 
 of the church and an admonition from God designed to bring men to 
 the consciousness of her corruption and to awaken the longing for her 
 regeneration. This schism he ascribes to the pleasure-pursuing, pomp- 
 loving, worldly spirit of the cardinals. " It never arose — he says — 
 from any love which the cardinals had for Christ and his church, but 
 from their love of themselves and their love of the world.^ Nor did 
 this schism tend ultimately to the injury of the church, but was rather 
 a benefit, inasmuch as the kingdom of Antichrist would thereby be 
 more easily and more speedily destroyed. Those days would be short- 
 ened for the elect's sake. Besides, the church would get rid of the 
 numberless multitude of hypocrites. He affirms, too, that it was only 
 the external appearance of the church which could be aftected by this 
 schism, her essential being was raised above its influence. " The body 
 of the omnipotent and altogether indivisible Jesus Christ, the commu- 
 nity of saints, is not divided, neither indeed can be divided : " — that 
 church which, by virtue of its eternal and immutable unity, depends 
 wholly on the unity of God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of his 
 spirit. As he discovers in the prevailing selfish element the cause of 
 all divisions of the church and of all her corruptions, so it seems to 
 him that restoration of church unity and a reformation of the church 
 can proceed only from the overcoming of that selfish element. He 
 says, the bhssful unity of the church can never be truly restored, 
 until men governed by self-love are removed entirely out of the way, 
 and their places filled by those in vastly multiplied numbers who over- 
 flow with zeal for the true unity of the church, — men who seek not 
 their own but the things of Jesus Christ ; which selfseeking he ap- 
 plies not to those alone who seek their own in the things of this world, 
 but to those also who in spiritual things are seeking only to set up 
 
 ' Sacrificium legis fuit hoc sacrificium Christiani, quotquot ihidcm congrcirati, 
 
 . propter dualitatem titriusqne speciei, sumebant coinmuniter o?« illo pane coelcsti 
 
 panis et vini, ex quibus hoc sacriticium a ministerio et de aUice, ita quod primus 
 
 inteo-ratur. sacerdos acccpit, de/iinc de.dit omiubus. 
 
 ^ Et omni.s multitudo dulcedinis sacra- ^ Cum non ex co schisma lioc tuetum 
 
 mento sub speciebus panis et vini abscond- est, quod dilexissent Christum Jesum et 
 
 ita; and, in the passage above quoted, the ejus ecclesiam, sed ex eo, quod se ipsos 
 
 important words in this view : Omnes ainaveruut et hunc mundum. 
 
232 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRIXE. 
 
 themselves and their party, looking down with contempt upon all 
 others.' As one symptom of the full of the church, and a premoni- 
 tory sign of the last times, he considers the various oppositions of 
 party, of which each would claim Christ exclusively for itself; — the 
 party of the lloman popes among the Italians, the party of the popes 
 at Avijinon amon^; the French, the Greek church, the different orders 
 of monks, spiritual and secular fraternities. Everywhere the cry was : 
 Lo here is Christ, and lo there is Christ. The church was no longer 
 a city on a hill, conspicuous to all, but split into three parts.- Bab 
 although he reckons schism generally among the signs of corruption, 
 yet the greatest right belonged in his opinion, comparatively speaking, 
 to Urban VI ; and he regarded it generally as a work of Satan and 
 Antichrist, that Clement VI. should gain such power against the law- 
 ful pope ; and that so many persons distinguished even for intelli- 
 gence could be deceived. " xVntichrist — he says — has exalted him- 
 self against the true pope. Urban VI. lie has persecuted and killed 
 the saints ; and attacked the entire church with such party spirit and 
 craft, that he has drawn wholly over to himself the sacred college of 
 the cardinals and made other colleges wavering, and the whole body 
 of the wise, as for example, the university of Paris and other universi- 
 ties." 
 
 We have already observed, however, since the time of Militz, the 
 antagonism between a reform and anti-reform tendency among the 
 clergy and laity had been continually evolving itself. Matthias of 
 Janow was, without doubt, at this time the centre and nucleus of the 
 reform tendency ; as we might easily infer, indeed, that he would be, 
 from his principles thus far unfolded ; and he himself, in various places, 
 mentions the existence of this antagonism : " They — says he — who 
 are apostles and preachers of Antichrist, oppress the apostles, the 
 wise men and prophets of Christ, persecuting them in various ways, 
 and boldly asserting, that these ministers of Christ are heretics, hypo- 
 crites, and Antichrists.^ And since many and mighty members of 
 Antichrist go forth in a countless variety of ways, they persecute the 
 members of Christ who are few and weak, compelling them to go 
 from one city to another by driving them from the synagogues, (ex- 
 cluding them from the fellowship of the church). Whenever one of 
 the society of such Christians ventures to be somewhat more free of 
 speech, and to hve more worthily of Christ than is comurun, he is 
 
 * Ego illos hie puto magis se ipsos tcm, Francigcnas ad occidcntcin. — Ecce 
 
 amantes et tiuac sua sunt iiKjui rentes pri- obsfuritas soils ct lunae, ut et civitas po- 
 
 vatc, (pii non tani in rebus torj)oralil)Us et sita su])ra niontem abscondita ct obnul)i- 
 
 variis, quae sua sunt quaerunt, non quae lata, (juod videri non possit. — llodie di- 
 
 proxinioruin vel coniniunitatis Christi lide- cunt Franeigenae euni suo oeeidentali 
 
 lium, sed et in rebus sjiiritualibus et prim- eoniitivo : hie est Cbristus, Italici vero et 
 
 ariis tantum sua commoda inrpiirunt, ex- Komani ad meridiem affirmant dicentes: 
 
 sortes ab amore communis tVatcrnitatis imo hie est Christus ct non alibi. ¥a ec- 
 
 clirisiianae, qua coraposita est ex perteetis clesia Graecorum ad orientem asseverat 
 
 et imperfeetis, ex justis et inhrmis. pertinaeiter dieens : non ibi nee alibi, sed 
 
 '^ Civitas ilia magna orbis ehristianorum hie nobiseum est Christus. 
 
 in tres partes de facto est conscissa, sive ' Membra fortia et multa antichrist!, 
 llomauos ad meridiem, Graccos ad orieu- 
 
JANOW AND THE SYNOD OP PRAGUE IN 1389. 233 
 
 directly called a beghard, or by some other heretical name, or merely 
 set down as a hypocrite or fool. If he do but in a small dG;^ree 
 imitate his crucified master, and confess his truth, he will experi(3iice 
 at once a fierce persecution from some side of the thick body of Anti- 
 christ. If thou dost not live just as they do, thou wilt be judged to 
 be nothing else but a poor superstitious creature or a false guide." 
 This antagonism became strikingly manifest at the remarkable synod 
 of Prague, of the year 1389, when the dominant party pronounced 
 against the principle of reform : that synod by which, as it is said, 
 Matthias of Janow was compelled to make a recantation — particu 
 larly of the principles he held in relation to the full participation of 
 the laity in the Lord's supper. There may be some question with 
 regard to the nature of the explanations which he made on this occa- 
 sion, and which were interpreted as a recantation. It is evident, at 
 least, that subsequently he continued to inculcate the same principles, 
 and was zealously opposed to that synod. Let us listen to his own 
 words on this subject : " Alas ! several colleges and the multitude of 
 those who style themselves masters and men of wisdom, lay it down as 
 an ordinance of God in the church, that images of wood, of stone, and 
 of silver, and such like, are to be prayed to and worshipped by Christ- 
 ians, though Holy Scripture is in plain and express contradiction 
 thereto: " — where he appeals to the law of the Old Testament. He 
 ingenuously rejects, as we have already shown, the testimony cited 
 from Thomas Aquinas and other schoolmen, in defence of this image- 
 worship. Simply on account of this was the reproach of idolatry cast 
 upon the church by Jews and Pagans. " Although a sophist and 
 logician might perhaps defend himself against the arguments used by 
 the Jews, without doing violence to his conscience and his faith ; yet 
 the unlearned people of the christian communities are undoubtedly 
 overcome by them, and seriously injured in purity of christian faith." 
 The allusion here is to the artificial interpretations and distinctions, 
 employed among the Greeks since the seventh century, and among 
 the Latins since the triumph of image-w^orship, to defend this image- 
 worship against the reproach of idolatry, and to reconcile it with the 
 purely spiritual worship of God ; a method which the synod of Prague 
 seems also to have employed. But Matthias of Janow, a man so 
 watchfully observant of the wants of the people, knew how little capa- 
 ble the simple laity were of comprehending all this, and how much the 
 purity of faith among them must accordingly suffer injury or be dis- 
 turbed thereby. Hence he remarks : " Teachers say a great deal in 
 the schools, which ought never to be so preached before the common 
 people ; though holy church has tolerated images and figures, and 
 teaches that they may be venerated, yet she has never taught that 
 they should be prayed to or adored." Then, after having shown the 
 corrupting influence of an extravagant image-worship on the religious 
 life, and of the custom of extolling the miracles wrought by them, he 
 remarks : " Yet there are at the present day many great and famous 
 men who hold that such things are of use to the simple ; nay, that it is 
 useful to preach such things, because men should piously believe, that 
 
 20* 
 
234 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 such tilings are of God. God, then, according to ^N'hat they affirm, 
 has, in these times, passed by his saints and his chosen, and turned 
 his regard to images of stone. And as God has ceased to perform his 
 Avonders in his own name and by his word, he now works them through 
 V'ood and stone.' Or does a holy and faithful God, perhaps, disi)Uiy 
 his power by these images and other such lifeless things ? And would 
 he thus by "^making that power depend on such images, secure an en- 
 trance among his christian people for the idolatry of the pagans ? Or 
 Avould he, by this, show favor to Satan, that the latter making himself 
 like God, might, by lying works, be able to appropriate divine honors 
 to himself? Or is it perhaps permitted the great enemy, in punish- 
 ment of unthankful Christians, to enter into all forms of seduction and 
 falsehood, carrying out through the instrumentality of men that seem 
 to others very"^ pious and holy, but are not so in fact, his work of 
 seduction by performing his signs and wonders through them ? They 
 have decided and ordained by synodal decree that it should be preach- 
 ed to the peoi)le that they ought piously to believe a divine power 
 resides in wooden images, and painted canvas." And he goes on to 
 say : " Who can fail to perceive, how corrupting this must be to the 
 rude and sensuous people, when he but considers that the people of 
 the laity at the present day, who have not the s[)irit of the Lord Jesus, 
 are not at all able to rise in spirit to spiritual things!" And he 
 adds : Because some preachers of the church of Ciirist and of his 
 cross, have not disputed the propriety of the thing in general, that 
 men should have images, but have attacked by sound christian doc- 
 trine the fables and inventions of men and the deceptions of certain 
 individuals,2 therefore the above mentioned men of wisdom have assail- 
 ed these preachers, held them up to public scorn, and sought in every 
 way to compel them to utter falsehood ; 3 then they have taken advan- 
 tage of their silence for the present to circulate these stories, the truth 
 of Christ being thus trampled under foot.4 '' How then can that man 
 — he says — who sees that the truth stands thus, and judges correct- 
 ly of individual facts, say or believe otherwise than tliat those times 
 of Antichrist are at hand, when he finds that such an ordinance has 
 resulted from the long deliberation of our wise men, teachers and doc- 
 tors of theology and of the canon law, in a solemn and famous assem- 
 bly ? Hence not a man was found among them, to stand forth inge- 
 nuously in defence of the truth." "All that now remains for us — 
 he says — is to desire and pray for reform by the destruction of Anti- 
 christ himself, and to lift up our heads, for our redemption draweth 
 nigh." lie remarks, again, about that synod of Prague, that the 
 
 ' Igitumc propterca, quod cessavit do- ^ Mox hi pracfati sapicntcs, oomprehen- 
 
 minus Jesus miracula et virtutcs suas in sis ii)sis prae(Jicatoril)Us, eosdem ludibrio 
 
 nomine suo et per verbum opcrari, jam per pubiite cxpositos omnibus modis ipsos 
 
 lapides ct li<;na opcratur ? mentiri conipcUere sunt conati. 
 
 ^ Quibusdani praedicatoribus ccclcsiae * Debinc silcntium ipsis pro tempore 
 
 Christi et ejus emcis, eo quod non qui- posuerunt, ut proinde tabulae supra de- 
 
 dem iiaa;^^ines habendas, sed fal)uhis et scriptae proniotionem habcant et proccs- 
 
 talia tictitia homiimm atque deeeptiones sum, veritate (Jbristi Jesu siceiue iu platea 
 
 quoruudam sunt ai^gressi impugnauduia corruente. 
 per doctrinam saaam Ciiristi. 
 
MATTHIAS OF JANOW. — JOHN HUSS. 235 
 
 masters ^vlio endeavored to draw away the laity from the frequent 
 participation of the Lord's supper, had, in fact forbidden by a synodal 
 decree that this sacrament should be given to the faithful who de- 
 manded it, oftener than once a month. These are his words : " Alas I 
 for myself, they have forced me by their importunate clamor at that 
 synod to agree that the faithful generally should not be invited to 
 daily communion." 
 
 2. John JIuss, the Bohemian Beformer. 
 
 Next after these reformers, or men inspired with the spirit of re- 
 form, came the individual through whose instrumentality it was that the 
 more general and violent movement for which the way had thus been 
 prepared broke forth, in Bohemia. 
 
 John Huss was born, on the Gth of July, 1369, at Hussinetz, a Bo- 
 hemian village lying within the circle of Prachim and towards the bor- 
 ders of Bavaria. Descended from a poor family, he was early inured 
 to labor and deprivation, and thus laid the foundation for those Chris- 
 tian virtues, which afterwards distinguished him. He studied philoso- 
 phy and theology at the university of Prague. This university, it is 
 true, was a seat of churchly orthodoxy ; but at the same time the an- 
 tagonistic tendencies of two different nationalities seem already to have 
 begun there gradually to unfold themselves — the strict church tendency 
 of the Germans, as opposed to the more liberal one of the Bohemians. 
 The teacher of Huss, Stanislaus of Znaim, belonged to the more liberal 
 party, as we shall hereafter see. In the year 1396, Huss received his 
 master's degree, and began himself to lecture, at the university, in the 
 year 1398. A man, however, of his Christian seriousness and deep- 
 seated piety, must certainly have felt himself shocked and repelled by 
 the worldly lives of the degenerate Bohemian clergy and monks, and 
 driven, in this way, into a more confirmed habit of communing with him- 
 self and seeking after God. We have seen indeed how, ever since the 
 times of John Slilitz, an opposition had been springing up between the 
 great majority of worldly priests and a smaller company earnestly de- 
 voted to their holy vocation and to the cause of God among the Bohe- 
 mian clergy. We have seen how Mihtz gave birth to a tendency that 
 connected itself more closely with the New Testament, and how, in 
 particular, Matthias of Janow directed attention to the apostolical 
 church, and to a reform after the pattern of that church. Huss could 
 not have remained unaffected by such influences. Between the two 
 parties, then already struggling with each other in Bohemia, he must 
 soon have made his choice. The influence of Matthias of Janow's 
 writinojs on his direction as a theolodan, is not to be mistaken. A cir- 
 cumstance which had much to do in moulding the rehgious character 
 of Huss, and in beating the path for his active labors as a reformer, was 
 his call to discharge the spiritual office in a sphere where he could ob- 
 tain a more intimate knowledge of the religious needs of the people, 
 and was brought into more immediate and living contact with them. 
 In the year 1391, John of Milheim, a member of the royal council of 
 
236 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 Bohemia, and Creutz, a merchant (the latter of whom gave the real 
 estate, a house which belonged to him, for the object), associated for 
 the purpose of founding a chapel, to be devoted particularly to the 
 preaching of the gospel in the vulgar tongue, for the benefit of the peo- 
 ple. We have an example, here, of that practical christian spirit which, 
 since the time of Militz's labors, had been awakened among the laity 
 in Bohemia, and to the existence of which Matthias of Janow bore his 
 testimony, as we have seen. This spirit is also evidenced, in a remarka- 
 ble manner, in the original title-deed of the foundation, which runs as 
 follows : '' The merciful God, who in the seed of his word has left be- 
 hind him a provision for them that fear him, so ordered it, by the insti- 
 tutions of the fiithers, that the preaching of God's word should not be 
 bound, it being the freest as it is the most profitable act for the church 
 and her members:" and then, after appealing for proof to Christ's 
 words, the founder goes on to say : " For had he not bequeathed to us 
 the seed of God's word and of holy preaching, we should have been 
 like unto Sodom and Gomorrha. Christ moreover had given commis- 
 sion to his disciples, when he appeared to them after his resurrection, 
 to preach the word, so as to preserve constantly in the world the living 
 memory of himself. But since all his actions are doctrines to them that 
 truly believe on him, he (the founder) had carefully considered that 
 the *^city of Prague, tliough possessing many places consecrated to the 
 ■worship of God and used for a variety of purposes connected with that 
 worship, was still destitute of a place devoted especially to preaching; 
 but preachers, particularly in the Bohemian tongue, were under the dis- 
 agreeable necessity of strolling about for this purpose, to houses and 
 corners ; therefore the founder endowed a chapel consecrated to the 
 Innocents, and named ' Bethlehem,' or the House of Bread, for the use 
 of the common people, that they might be refreshed with the bread of 
 holy preaching.^ Over this church a preacher was to be placed as rec- 
 tor, whose special duty it should be, to hold forth the word of God, on 
 every Sunday and festival day, in the Bohemian tongue. ^ It is a 
 proof of the high reputation in which liuss already stood, and of the 
 expectations excited by the peculiar bent of his religious character, that 
 in the year 1401 he should be appointed the preacher over this founda- 
 tion. His sermons, glowing with all that fervor of love from which they 
 proceeded, and backed up by a pious, exemplary life, coupled with gen- 
 tle and amiable manners, made a powerful impression. A little com- 
 munity gathered around him, of warm and devoted friends ; and a 
 new Christian life started forth, from him, among the people. He be- 
 came more intimately acquainted, as a curer of souls to the lower class 
 
 ' Quam Bethlehem, quod interprctatur nus ad sonum campanum diebus singulis 
 
 domus panis. ccii.sui appelhiiKhiin liac con- nh ecclc!-ia celehrilms mane et facto jjran- 
 
 sideratione, ut ibidem populus tomnmnis dio, et tempore adventus et (iuadra<,'esimae 
 
 et Christi tidelcs pane praedicationis sane- mane tantum horis solitis, et prout in aliis 
 
 tae retici debeant. See I'elzel, account of ecdcsiis j)raedican est consuetum, verbum 
 
 the Life of King Wenceshms, Prague, dei comnmni })opulo civitatis in vulgari 
 
 1788; Document is'o. 81, p. 103. Bohemico sit ad praedicandum astrictus. 
 
 2 Words of the llecord of foundation Tag. 105. 
 respecting his duties : Ut dictus capella- 
 
HUSS PLACED AS PREACHER AT BETIILEHExM CHAPEL. 237 
 
 of the people, with the corrupting influence of a religion reduced en- 
 tirely to a round of outward ceremonies, and of the superstition which 
 gave countenance and support to immorality, and was thus led to attack the 
 sources of so much mischief, to dwell with increasing earnestness upon 
 the essence of a practical Christianity, bringing forth its fruits from a 
 principle seated in the heart, and to rebuke with emphatic severity the 
 prevailing vices. So long as he chiefly attacked the corru[)tion among 
 the laity, he was left unmolested. The new archbishop of Prague, 
 Zbynek of Hasenburg, appointed to that office in the year 1403, was 
 not himself, by any means, a man of purely sf)iritual bent, but one ac- 
 customed to mingle freely in secular affairs, and even to take a part in 
 warlike enterprizes ; yet he was opposed to ecclesiastical abuses, and to 
 the superstition therewith connected. lie was desirous of introducing a 
 stricter discipline into his diocese, and he must have had some knowl- 
 edge of Huss, and have esteemed him as a zealous reformer ; for, in en- 
 tering upon his duties as archbishop, he invited Huss to give him direct 
 information of all the abuses which came under his personal observa- 
 tion ; or, if he shoidd not happen to be in Prague, to inform him by 
 letter.i Accordingly he availed himself of the assistance and advice 
 of Huss in an important transaction which took place soon after his en- 
 trance upon office, the object of which was to suppress a certain super- 
 stition and the abuses which had grown out of it. The matter was of 
 this sort : at Wilsnack, in the district of Priegnitz, a church had been 
 destroyed by a knight some time in the fourteenth century. Part of a 
 stone altar had been left standing. In one of its cavities were found 
 three wafers, colored red, as if with blood ; a phenomenon the like of 
 which has often occurred from the earliest times, and which has as of- 
 ten, under various religions, been construed into the miraculous ; but a 
 phenomenon satisfactorily explained by more recent investigations into 
 natural causes, it being now well known that bread and similar sub- 
 stances, long exposed to moisture, are wont to be covered with an animal 
 product, the constituent parts of which are discernible only under the 
 microscope, but which to the naked eye bears a close resemblance to 
 blood. 2 But in these times, the remarkable appearance was regarded 
 as a symbol of the blood of Christ. The report of so extraordinary a 
 miracle created a great sensation : stories were soon circulated, of won- 
 derful cures performed on the spot ; numerous pilgrimages were made 
 to it from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Hungary, Poland, and Bohe- 
 mia. Various tricks would naturally be resorted to, in that age, by the 
 corrupt clergy and monks, to help on the self-deception, which could 
 not fail to be attended with great mischief to the religious and moral 
 
 » This is evident from a letter written sentia per literam defectum hnjusmodi 
 by Huss to this archbishop at the time nuntiarem. This fragment of the letter 
 when a rupture had ah-eady taken place was first published by the Bohemian his- 
 between the two men, in which he adverts torian, Palacky, in his History of Bohemia, 
 to the invitation then given to him. His IIL 1 p. 216. ^ 
 words are: Saepissime reitero, qualiter = See the Extract from Ehrenberg s pa- 
 in principio vestri regiminis mihi pro re- per on the Monas prodigiosa in the month- 
 gula paternitas vestra instituerat, ut quot- ly report of the Academy ot Sciences, m 
 jescunque aliquem defectum erga regimen Berlin, for October, 1848. 
 conspicerem, mox personaliter aut in ab- 
 
238 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 life of the people. Archbishop Zbvnek appointed, therefore, a commit- 
 tee of three masters to inquire into the matter ; and as their report 
 ■was unfavorable to the pilgrims, the spurious character of those pre- 
 tended miracles having been exposed, Zbvnek put forth an order pro- 
 hibiting all such pilgriniages from his own diocese. One of these masters 
 was Huss, who probably had great influence in bringing about the de- 
 cision.' This was his first opportunity of standing forth publicly against 
 superstition, and it was done under the authority of the archbishop 
 himself. He composed, on this occasion, his paper on the proi-er mode 
 of regarding the glorified blood of Christ.^ In this tract it is very evi- 
 dent'that he was still entirely given to the prevailing doctrines of the 
 church, even on the article of transubstantiation : but he ventured al- 
 ready to call in question the stories generally believed since the time 
 of Paschasias Radbert, relative to the miraculous appearances of the 
 body and blood of Christ. We already find in him a representative of 
 the genuine Christian spirit, as opposed to the miracle-hunting spirit 
 of his age. " The glorified body of Christ — he says — exists dimen- 
 sionallv m heaven alone, though truly and really in the sacrament of 
 the altar. Nothing that belonged to this body could be separated 
 from it and present, by itself, alone upon earth. All that is said, there- 
 fore, about relics of Christ's body, or of his blood, as being present in 
 this place or that, must be false. He who pretends to beheve anything 
 of this sort, dishonors the blood of Christ, no less than if he worship- 
 ped, under that name, the blood of a dead horse. But alas! — he 
 says — the iniquity of greedy ecclesiastics has increased to such extent 
 that messengers of Antichrist, following their master the devil, have 
 exhibited their own blood as the blood of Christ, at the eucharist, and 
 the same is adored by foolish and unbelieving Christians, who unbeliev- 
 ingly seek after wonders." He calls those who were seeking after such 
 wonders, more unbelieving than Thomas, because though after the Lord 
 had shown himself to the unbelieving Thomas he believed, they would 
 not believe on him even when glorified and exalted at the right hand 
 of the Father, but required sensible signs of his presence. Christ was 
 now hidden from sight, present only to faith ; this constituted the es- 
 sence of faith, the meritum fidei, that it takes hold of things hidden, in- 
 visible ; this was therefore more wholesome and conducive to tlie life of 
 religion than if the blood of Christ were visibly present. We ought 
 confidently to believe that if it had been better for us to see Christ 
 bodily present among us, he would not have deprived us of this privi- 
 lege. But because faith would be destitute of merit, if accompanied 
 wilh the experience of sense, therefore Christ with his blood has been 
 pleased to withdraw himself from our sight. He applies to his contempo- 
 raries what St. Paul says of the sign-seeking spirit of the Jews, to whom 
 Christ crucified was a stumbling block. Like Matthias of Janow, he is 
 
 ' IIu^s himself mentions this commis- ' Dcterminatio qnaestioni'^, rum suo 
 
 sion: KtiMm fuimus tres maKistri dcputa- tractatulo (li> omni san-uinc Chn^ti o^lo- 
 
 ti per (lomimim archicpisfoi.um a.l exam- rilicato. Joannis Hus opera, Jsoruul)crg. 
 
 inanilmn lioininos, de ipiiLus pracdicabunt 1558, toni. I, ful. 154 pag. 2 sq. 
 fuisse facta miracula. Fol. 162, 2. 
 
HU3S ON THE WILSNACK MIRACLE. 239 
 
 inclined to attribute the miracles with which the wicked clergy sought 
 to delude the people, to evil spirits. The laity, by their confidence in 
 such miracles, were drawn away from the essential thing, true love, 
 and hardened in their sins. Like Matthias of Janow, he applies the 
 words of Christ to those that would say, Lo ! here is Christ, or there, 
 to those who said, The blood of Christ is here, or it is there ; they 
 were not to be believed. Like Matthias of Janow, he looks upon those 
 pious frauds by which the laity were led astray, as the present secretly- 
 working power of Antichrist, and applies to them what St. Paul, in the 
 epistles to the Thessalonians, says of the workings of Antichrist. The 
 faithful should, in a proper way, use all diligence to live simply accord- 
 ing to the law of the gospel, and put no faith in fables and lying won- 
 ders, or w^onders actually wrought by evil spirits or wicked men. Thus 
 would they, in a more quiet manner, grow confirmed in the faith of the 
 Lord. Such miracles rendered it the more necessary for each individ- 
 ual to fortify himself with the word of God, so as to avoid being deceived 
 by false prophets and false Messiahs, whose appearance Christ foretold. 
 He cites one example of fraud : A citizen of Prague, with a lame hand, 
 had hung up a silver hand as a votive offering, in honor of the bloody 
 wafers in Wilsnack. Wishing, however, to test the honesty of the priests, 
 he staid three days in the place ; but before the time expired, he must 
 hear how a priest had publicly referred to this offering of the silver 
 hand, as a proof of the miraculous cure of the lame one. The citizen 
 of Prague convicted him of the falsehood by showing his hand, which 
 remained as lame as ever. And for the truth of this statement, Huss 
 appeals to the testimony of many who knew the person referred to. 
 " Truly — jie says — if the priests faithfully observed Christ's evangeli- 
 cal counsel and preached Ckrint's ivords to the people, rather than ly- 
 ing wonders, our gracious Saviour would guide the steps of both priests 
 and people out of the bad way, the way of sin and falsehood." He 
 complains that, in their distresses, people were more inclined to invoke 
 help from the blood of Christ, than from God, and to place their hopes 
 upon a mere creature than upon the Creator. Even now, says he, it 
 is not easy to find a district which is not famous for some appearance 
 of the blood of Christ. The worst transgressors, robbers and the like, 
 were made to feel secure in sin by their confidence in such blood, and 
 these were the best patrons and friends of this miraculous blood, though 
 they persecuted Christ himself, and unrighteously shed his blood, in his 
 members. 
 
 The archbishop had directed the curates to announce on every 
 Sunday that the pilgrimage to Wilsnack was forbidden on pain of the 
 ban. 
 
 But though the young archbishop stood at the beginning on these 
 friendly terms with Huss, still we might be led to presume from the 
 different spirit of the two men, that it would be impossible for them to 
 unite their efforts in promoting reform except to a certain extent, and 
 that an occasion might easily arise in which this internal opposition 
 would be forced to show itself by some outward manifestation. It 
 was impossible that Huss, with the spirit of reform by which he was 
 
240 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 actuated, should stop short at the bounds which the archbishop from 
 the position which he occupied would be apt to prescribe to himself. 
 In connection with the antagonism of the reform and anti-reform ten- 
 dencies existing in the movements of the time, it would not be long 
 before such an°occasion must present itself. Aside from the pohtical 
 interests, which afterwards became mixed in, liuss could not fail in 
 the end to be involved by his very principles of reform, which led 
 him farther than he could calculate upon, in a quarrel with the arch- 
 bishop. For Huss, who was governed solely by the religious inter- 
 est, would be continually led by it to take one step after another in 
 his attacks on the corruption of the church ; whilst, on the other hand, 
 Zbvnek was induced by reasons of policy to stop short, as soon as he 
 had any grounds to appreliend that he was coming into conflict with 
 the hierarchical system. Huss needed no excitement from without to 
 keep his zeal for reform in vigorous activity. One thing, moreover, 
 which must have had great influence in giving the turn to his theolo- 
 gical development, was, that he had diligently devoted himself to the 
 study of the Bible, of the old church fathers, particularly Augustin, in 
 whose writings he seems to have been deeply read, and of Robert of 
 Lincoln ; — of all which we have abundant evidence in his writings. 
 In the ideas thrown out by Matthias of Janow, the needful matter had 
 already been supplied ; and from these alone, without any additional 
 influence from Wicklif, a contest might in these times easily evolve 
 itself, capable of being pushed to any extreme by the opposition of the 
 great anti-reform party. Whatever lies involved in principles that 
 have once found entrance into human consciousness, is ever shaped 
 forth and carried still farther out by the movements of liistory. We 
 find in the principles of Janow the incipient germ of the whole reform 
 movement in Bohemia ; and it might have remained wholly national, 
 wholly independent of the English spirit. And, in fact, we may 
 constantly observe this diff'erence, that, in the theology of Oxford, the 
 speculative spirit was the predominant one ; while the Bohemian re- 
 form, from those first promoters and representatives of it, whose char- 
 acters we have already described, had taken an altogether practical 
 direction. It is true, that so far as it regards the consequences which 
 outwardly manifested themselves at first, it had great influence, a3 
 will hereafter appear, that the reform spirit in Prague stood in some 
 connection with the opinions of Wicklif, denounced as heretical. The 
 reform movements in Bohemia would not, perhaps, separated from this 
 connection, have risen so suddenly to so great importance ; still we 
 cannot on this account agree with those who ascribe to Wicklif 's writ- 
 in'^s so f^eat an influence on the development of the reform opposition 
 to°the hierarchy in Bohemia. It is, moreover, of great importance 
 here, to anything like a right understanding of the phenomena of the 
 religious and theological spirit, to distinguish well internal and ex- 
 ternal causes, internal and external connections. And if, on the one 
 hand, through the influence of Wicklif 's writings, and the connection 
 of the movements originating with lluss with those excited by Wicklif, 
 the position of the reform party in Bohemia afterwards became a 
 
HUSS AND WICKLIF. 241 
 
 dangerous one, still we must consider, on the other hand, that it was 
 precisely owing to the way in which IIuss connected himself with 
 Wicklif, that a large number of friends and adherents were procured 
 for him at the outset, wiiom he could hardly have gained by the pure- 
 ly reform and anti-hierarchical interest; — friends, indeed, who, for 
 the very reason that they did not sympathize at all with the interest 
 for a purely Christian reform which actuated IIuss from the begin- 
 ning, did not harmonize with him in temper and spirit, and would on 
 that very account be soon led to separate from him, and even to come 
 out against him. Only so long as it was an affair of the school, and 
 particularly of the philosophical school, and this affair was treated as a 
 common cause of the nation, could they remain connected with him ; 
 but this very circumstance which, at the outset, gave to the party of 
 IIuss so great an ascendancy at Prague university, could not have 
 existed independently of the connection between the reform tendency in 
 Bohemia and the cause of Wicklif 's school ; as will be apparent from 
 the facts now to be presented. 
 
 A Bohemian princess, Anna, sister to King Wenceslaus, had mar- 
 ried Richard II, king of England.^ This would of course lead the 
 way to a more familiar intercourse between the two nations ; and the 
 disciples of Wicklif who were enthusiastic in their endeavors to diffuse 
 the writings, the philosophical and theological doctrines of their mas- 
 ter, would assuredly not fail to take advantage of such an opening for 
 tills purpose. The connection also between the two flourishing univer- 
 sities, which doubtless independently of this event, was a lively one, 
 would be still more promoted by it. Young English theologians came 
 from Oxford to Prague. Bohemians studied in Oxford, and were 
 there seized with enthusiasm for the doctrines of Wicklif; though we 
 should not lose sight of the fact, that Wicklif was not merely the 
 representative of a particular theological bent, but also by philosoph- 
 ical writings, having no connection whatever with the theological in- 
 terest, and particularly by his work already mentioned, which created 
 an epoch of its own, the treatise on the reality of general conceptions, 
 was one of the most important representatives of the philosophical 
 school of realism ; and, though with him, as we have seen, the philo- 
 sophical and theological interest, philosophical and theological princi- 
 ples were intimately connected, yet this was not at all a necessary 
 connection in itself; and one might adopt the philosophical opinions 
 of Wicklif, esteem him highly as a philosopher, without agreeing with 
 him on that account in his theological views. From this it is the 
 more easily to be explained how Wicklif's writings might already for 
 a long time have been considerably read at the University of Prague, 
 without creating any ecclesiastical movements whatever, or rendering 
 the orthodoxy of those persons suspected, who occupied themselves 
 with the study of certain writings of Wickhf. Huss himself declares 
 
 ' She was in the hahit of reading the tin, German, and Bohemian tongues 
 New Testament ; and carried with her to Comp. Pahickj III. 1 p. 24. 
 England a book of the gospels in the La- 
 
 VOL. V. 21 
 
242 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 in a paper composed about the year 1411,' that for thirty years, there- 
 fore from the year 1381, Avri tings of WickHf -were read at Pra<^ue 
 university, and tliat he himself had been in the habit of reading them 
 for more than 20 years, that is, before the vear 1891.2 
 
 It is evident from what has been said, that the spread of Wicklif's 
 "Writings in Prague fell within the last years of the life of Mattliias of 
 Janow ; yet, although traces perhaps of a reference to ductrines of 
 "Wicklif may be discovered in his work already noticed, still he must 
 have occupied himself but very little with them, and they must have 
 exercised little or no particular influence on his mind. He pursued 
 his course after an independent manner in the path to which the sug- 
 gestions that came originally from Militz had conducted him. But 
 Huss, as we may gather with certainty from his own language already 
 cited, had at a very early period read many of Wickhf's writings. 
 What attracted him in these writings was partly the philosophical real- 
 ism, partly the spirit of reform as opposed to the secularization of the 
 church, of the monastic orders, and of the clergy, which they contain- 
 ed, and that inclination to adhere to the New Testament as the only 
 source of doctrine, the striving after a renovation of the Christian life 
 in the sense of apostolical Christianity. Let us hear the words of 
 Huss himself on this point: " I am drawn to him — he says — by the 
 reputation he enjoys with the good, not the bad priests at the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford, and generally with the people, though not with the 
 bad, covetous, pomp-loving, dissipated prelates and priests. I am 
 attracted by his writings, in which he expends every effort to conduct 
 all men back to the law of Christ, and especially the clergy, inviting 
 them to let go the pomp and dominion of the world and live with the 
 apostles according to the life of Christ. I am attracted by the love 
 which he had for the law of Christ, maintaining its truth and holding 
 that not one jot or tittle of it could fail." 3 He mentions here in par- 
 ticular for illustration the book composed by Wicklif, on the truth of 
 Holy Scripture, in which he endeavored to establish the validity of 
 the law of Christ in its whole extent. And he then adverts to the 
 fact that many of Wicklif's writings were on purely philosophical sub- 
 jects, which, as they did not at all affect the truths of faith, could be 
 read without danger. It is evident, therefore, that Huss agreed with 
 Wicklif only up to that point to which his interest for reform had 
 already led him in following the steps of Matthias of Janow. To 
 Wicklif, as we have seen, his attack on the doctrine of transubstantia- 
 tion, and his pecuhar views of the Lord's supper, were of especial 
 importance ; but we do not perceive that these had had any particular 
 influence on Huss. On this matter he never passed beyond what was 
 
 ' Replica contra Anglicum Joanncm toto conamine, omncs liomines ad legem 
 
 Stokes, opp. I, fol. 108. Christi redueere, ct elerum pnictipuu, ut 
 
 * Universitas ab annis triginta habct ct diinittendo sacculi poinpaiii, domination- 
 legit libros ipsius Joan. Wicleti'. Egocpie em vivat cum apostolis vitam Christi. 
 ct membra nostrae uuiversitatis habc-mus Movet me atVcctus suns, (luem ad Chriati 
 et legimus illos libros ab annis viginti et legem hal)uit, asserens de veritate ejus, 
 pluribus. Ibid. quae non potest in uno iota vel apice I'al- 
 
 ^ Movent me sua scripta, quibus nititur lere. Ibid. fol. 109, 1. 
 
nUSS AND WICKLIF. 
 
 243 
 
 simply practical ; — as already seen, ho gave special prominence to 
 the spiritual fellowship with Christ, to the truth that he himself is the 
 bread of the soul, without entering more minutely into the question 
 about the relation of the bread and wine to the body and blood of 
 Christ.' Huss may have had the less hesitation about availing him- 
 self of the writings of Wicklif, inasmuch as two young men who came 
 from Oxford to Prague, — one an Englishman,^ the other a Bohemian, 
 probably the Count Nicholas of Faulhsch, hereafter to be mentioned, 
 had brought with them a document authenticated by the seal of the 
 University of Oxford, in which Wicklif 's orthodoxy \Yas duly testified. 
 Huss is reported to have read this document from the pulpit to his 
 congregation as a testimonial in favor of that Wicklif who had been 
 denounced as a heretic. Now it is evident, we admit, that such a 
 declaration was altogether opposed to the spirit of the academical 
 authorities w^ho then ruled at Oxford. It was a forgery, to which the 
 seal of the university had been fraudulently appended — the fabrica- 
 tion of false documents of this sort being at that time no uncommon 
 
 * We find nothing in the writings of 
 Huss, which indicates that, in respect of 
 this doctrine, he had, as Pahicky supposes, 
 (III. l.s. 197 and 198), through the intlu 
 ence of Wicklif, been at least led to waver, 
 and did not, till a later period, take a de- 
 cidedly different view from Wicklif on this 
 point. In general, we think we have not 
 observed that Huss allowed himself to be 
 determined in his doctrinal convictions at 
 first more and afterwards less by the in- 
 fluence of Wicklif It seems to us much 
 more to correspond with the actual course 
 of the development of his doctrinal opin- 
 ions, to suppose that he was led by his 
 principles and the opposition which grew 
 out of them, step by step farther away 
 from the church tendency, and not that 
 he was more decided in his opposition at 
 the beginning, and afterwards grew mild- 
 er. Even, on the occasion of his trial at 
 Prague, in 1414, of which a protocol drawn 
 up by Peter of Mladenowitz, secretary to 
 the Knight of Chluni, has been published 
 in the Studien und Kritiken (Jahrg. 1837, 
 Heft 1), Huss absolutely repels the charge 
 that he had ever attacked the doctrine of 
 transubstantiation. Huss here declares 
 that he could not possibly have spoken 
 before the people in the Bohemian tongue 
 on the accidentibus sine subjecto, because this 
 language contained no terms whatever by 
 which such a conception could be express- 
 ed : but he had said, guarding against any 
 misinterpretation of liis language, that as 
 a man's body is veiled under his shirt, so 
 the body of Christ is in a certain sense 
 veiled beneath the form of the bread, and 
 as the soul is concealed within the body, 
 so the body of Christ is concealed under 
 the figure of the bread. And he appeals 
 for proof to the language of an ancient 
 
 hvmn. and to words of St. Augustin, which 
 mark a distinction between that which 
 faith perceives, and that which is mani- 
 fest to the senses in the Lord's supper. 
 That when he speaks of a forma panis, he 
 means to intimate the remaining behind 
 of the substance, cannot be proved. He 
 affirms, that when he spoke of the remain- 
 ing behind of the bread in the Lord's sup- 
 per, he meant only Christ the heavenly 
 bread, which is offered in the sacrament. 
 Now we might, it is true, suspect that Huss 
 took the liberty to conceal his real opinion 
 in this ambiguous phraseology, or that he, 
 at a later period, resorted to sophistical 
 interpretations of the language earlier used 
 by him ; but still we shall find no ground 
 whatever to accuse him of any such thing. 
 It is, in fact, one of the particulars wliich 
 characterize the practical bent peculiar to 
 Huss, to give special prominence to the 
 statement that Clirist himself is the bread 
 of the soul in the Lord's supper, and if now 
 he ever laid the whole stress upon this, it 
 may have been interpreted by his oppo- 
 nents as if he always spoke only of the 
 bread present in the Lord's supper. In 
 fact we find that Huss afterwards, in a ]>a- 
 per hereafter to be cited, was actually un- 
 der the necessity of vindicating himself 
 against such a perversion of his language, 
 and of explaining his real meaning. 
 
 ^ We have taken no notice of the story 
 about a picture drawn by the two English- 
 men on the walls of a room which they 
 had hired, which exhibited the contrast 
 between the worldly entrance of the poi)e 
 into Rome, and the entrance of Christ into 
 Jerusulem, the so called xintlthesis Christ i 
 et Antichristi, and of the commotions to 
 which it led; because we do not certainly 
 know that the narrative of the Hussite 
 
244 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 thinf^ at Oxford : ' but it is certain that Huss himself was deceived in 
 this case ; he could know nothing about this manufactory of false 
 documents at Oxford, and his admiration of Wicklif might in this case 
 easily incline him to believe without further examination.- Further- 
 more, the struirde for and a^jrainst Wicklif, as well as the antagonism 
 of realism and nominalism was an affliir of national interest. Under 
 the Emperor Charles IV, king of Bohemia, the founder of the Univer- 
 sity of Prague, many Germans had resorted thither, obtained impor- 
 tant posts, and sought to gain on their own side the greatest influence 
 at tlie university. This circumstance had excited great jealousy be- 
 twixt the two nations. Much enthusiasm was awakened at that time 
 among the Bohemians for the maintenance of their own nationality in 
 language and literature. Among the peculiar qualities of Huss be- 
 longed an ardent love of his country and people. His efforts for the 
 cultivation of the Bohemian language and orthography were praised 
 by those competent to judge, and his influence in this regard is said to 
 have extended even to other Slavic populations.**^ Now as the Ger- 
 mans were zealous nominalists, so the Bohemians, on the other hand, 
 were no less zealous realists, and the Bohemian theologians at the 
 university were at first more inclined to the freer opinions and in favor 
 of Wicklif. It was the Bohemian theological party to which Huss 
 belonged, and to the head of which he was constantly advancing by 
 his zeal, his active labors, and his theological culture. His teachers at 
 the university of Prague, Stanislaus and Peter of Znaim, and his uni- 
 versity friend, Stephen Paletz belonged to this bent, and followed it 
 in their writings and lectures. Stanislaus of Znaim seems indeed to 
 have proceeded farther in the interest for Wicklif than Huss himself, 
 in that he judged more favorably of his attack upon the doctrine of 
 transubstantiation. Huss cites the following words of Stanislaus, 
 which he pronounced in his commentary on the Sentences of Wicklif: 
 " A certain teacher, Wicklif, in other things a profound philosopher 
 and theologian, delivers this opinion, (which he cites), and has pub- 
 licly and often protested, as one may find in his writings, that as an 
 obedient son of the church he is ready to believe, when he is convin- 
 ced, the contrary, nay, if it be necessary, even to suffer death in cor- 
 
 historiun, Theobald, which, in other re- ing and using such a fraudulent document 
 
 spects, contains maiiy inaccurate state- of En<;Iishmen, he was able to make a 
 
 nients, is to be relied upon, and we have clear and simple statement of the wliole 
 
 found in the writinj^s of Huss himself no affair in justitii'ation of his conduct in the 
 
 allusion whatever to this affair wliich he case, and to arppeal to the testimony of his 
 
 is said to have touched upon in his ser- earlier like-minded friend, Stephen Paletz, 
 
 mons at that time. who had been ecjually deceived with him- 
 
 ' The seal of the university of Oxford self, and who now appeared at Constance 
 
 was much abused in those days. Petras as his accuser. Qiiurnque confessus csset, 
 
 Paganus or Payne, a clergyman, had con- propterea quod sul) signo universitatis a 
 
 trived to get it into his hands, and used it duobus scholasticis allata csset, illique 
 
 for tlie purpose of lending an appearance ctiam de iis scholasticis quaeren-nt, re- 
 
 of authenticity to that paper got up in spondit : Iile amicus nieus (signilicabat 
 
 favor of Wicklif as if it were an official autem Stephanum Paletz) alterum ex iis 
 
 document. 8ee Wood historia et anti<jui- ac<pie novit atcpie ego, alter ncscio qui 
 
 tates universitatis Oxoniensis I. pag. 203. fuerit. Hermann v. d. Ilardt acta concilii 
 
 * When llu-is, at his trial in Constance, Constantiensis tom. IV. pag. 328. 
 
 on the 8th of June, was accused of publish- ' See Palacky 111, I S. 298 ff. 
 
HUSS STANDING UP FOR THE BOHEMIAN NATIONALITY. 245 
 
 rection of his error. And many, -vvlio are less able to see than he is, 
 denounce him as a heretic in this and other things, and defame the 
 reputation of those ^vho read his writings, not perceiving that among 
 thorns may be found the most beautiful roses, even though he may 
 really have uttered much that is heretical." And the same teacher 
 says of the doctrine of transubstantiation : " unless a new determination 
 of the church or a satisfactory argument can prove this, it is not 
 requisite for the catholic faith to adopt it." i We should here un- 
 doubtedly keep in mind, that the doctrine of transubstantiation no 
 longer, as in the earlier centuries of the middle age, corresponded to 
 a bent of spirit that ruled the whole age, and to a form of intuition 
 grounded therein ; that unembarrassed, childlike faith no longer predo- 
 minated ; doubts would rise even in the minds of those who were most 
 cheerfully disposed to hold fast in all things to the authority of the 
 church, as is plain from the fact that from Duns Scotus onward, a 
 William Occum, a Durand, a Peter d'Ailly, themselves had to ac- 
 knowledge that reason and scripture would lead to a different view, if 
 the church had not otherwise decided. Huss subsequently reproach- 
 ed his friend, Paletz, for his crab-like movement, and accused him of 
 having changed from a realist to a nominalist.^ By the German 
 party a mock mass upon their Bohemian opponents, the Wicklifites, 
 was got up, and in it the genealogy of Christ was thus travestied — 
 Peter of Znaim begat Stanislaus of Znaim, Stanislaus begat Stephen 
 Paletz, and the latter begot Huss, intimating how Wicklifitism had 
 spread from one to the other.^ 
 
 An individual, who had great influence on the movements called 
 forth in Prague by the contest for and against Wicklif, was one whom 
 we shall often have occasion to mention as a fellow-combatant with Huss, 
 the chevalier Jerome of Prague."* He was one of the few knights in 
 Bohemia, distinguished by their zeal for science and literary culture^ 
 
 * Hus, responsio ad scripta magistri shown that this statement has grown out 
 Stanislaus de Znoyma ; opp. 1 pag. 267 et of an error, by which the Chevalier Je- 
 288. rome had been confounded with another 
 
 ' Jam te cum Stanislao non poneres ad less known zealous friend of Wicklif 's 
 
 defendendura librum de universalibus ; doctrines in Prague, the Chevalier Nich- 
 
 and : Fuistis realistae, cum jam sitis ter- olas of Faulftsch. See Palacky III. 1 s. 
 
 ministae. Responsio ad scripta Paletz; 192, Note 245. [Palacky ascribes the er- 
 
 opp. I, pag. 260. Jam rebus dimissis, con- ror not to Aeneas Sylvius but to his read- 
 
 versus es ad signa vel tcrminos, retroce- ers. Editor.] 
 
 dens sicut cancer. Ibid. pag. 262. * In these stirring times of the Bohe- 
 
 ^ Missa, quam Teutonici blaspheme con- mian nation there were some such. Pa- 
 
 finixerant, in qua per modum libri gene- lacky, for example, (III, 1 p. 187), men- 
 
 rationis primo ponitur Stanislaus, qui ge- tions the Chevalier Thomas of Stitney, 
 
 nuit Petrum de Znoyma, et Petrus de the author of many papers, whose most 
 
 Znoyma genuit Paletz et Paletz genuit important woi'k appeared in the year 1374, 
 
 Hus'. L. c. pag. 255, 2. and who was still living at the close of 
 
 * Jerome is mentioned (according to the fourteenth century. It characterizes 
 Aeneas Sylvius in his Historia Bohemica, the national movement in Bohemia, that 
 cap. XXXV, who describes him as a pu- even in the case of this person, a man 
 tridus piscis : Turn quod erat familiae zealously devoted to scientitic and literary 
 suae cognomen, Putridum piscem, id est, pursuits, the religious element, as Palacky 
 foetidum virus, in cives suos evomuit) as alleges, is the predominant one in his writ- 
 being connected with the noble Bohemian ings. 
 
 family of Faulfisch. But, Palacky has 
 
 21* 
 
246 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 Jerome of Pra_2:ne, several years younger tlian Huss, his youthful 
 friend, stood foithfully by his side, as we frequently see men the most 
 ■widely differing in cliaracter and in mental gifts, in times forming epochs 
 in the evolution of the kingdom of God, each supplying the other's de- 
 ficiencies, cooperating and contending together, as did afterwards Lu- 
 ther and Melancthon, although the relation in the present instance was 
 a somewhat different one. lluss, a man of more calmness and discre- 
 tion, of a character at once firm and gentle, more inclined to modera- 
 tion, possessed of less numerous and diversified gifts, of a less excitable 
 spirit, fonder of retirement within himself and silent self-seclusion than 
 cf min<]rrmg in the busv turmoils of life — Jerome, full of life and ar- 
 dor, of an enterprising spirit, not disposed to remain still and quiet a 
 long time in one place, whom we find now in Oxford, next at Paris, 
 then at Jerusalem, in Hungary, at Vienna, and in Russia, everywhere 
 attracting observation and everywhere provoking opposition, a man 
 possessed of a gift of discourse that bore everything before it, but who 
 in the excitement of the moment was easily led to pass beyond proper 
 bounds, one who needed the cool considerateness of a Huss to act as a 
 check on his activity. Jerome had, in 1398, returned from Oxford to 
 Prague, and brou^rht with him manv writin<is of Wicklif not before 
 known, which he endeavored to circulate through the whole country 
 and among all ranks and conditions of people. He stood up, with 
 great enthusiasm, for the doctrines of Wicklif. He is reported to have 
 said : " Until now, we had nothing but the shell of science ; Wicklif 
 first laid open the kernel." 
 
 After the contest for and against Wicklif, ever excited afresh by the 
 connection between Oxford and Prague, had gone on for a considerable 
 time in secret, the matter finally came to an open rupture. At the re- 
 quest of the archiepiscopal officials and cathedral chapter of Prague, 
 a meeting of the university was held on the 28th of May, 140o, and 
 forty-five propositions ascribed to Wicklif were laid before that body for 
 examination. Here, for the first time, it came to lin open and violent 
 struggle between the Bohemian and the German party. The repre- 
 sentatives of the former in part defended the propositions complained 
 of, and partly they maintained that they were not taught in the sense 
 ascribed to them. In this assembly, one of the warm advocates of Wick- 
 lifs cause in Bohemia, Master Nicholas of Leitomysl, declared that 
 these articles had been falsified by a certain Master Hiibner, who more 
 richly deserved to be burned than the two poor fellows who had been 
 burned for counterfeiting saffron (an herb much sought for and used in 
 those times). Huss himself declared at this time, as ever afterwards, 
 that he could not agree to the unconditional condemnation of those 
 propositions, though neither was he disposed to defend them all ; for 
 many of them had been interpolated by that Master Hiibner. He could 
 not join in any such condemnation, lest ho should bring on himself the 
 woes denounced on such as called evil good, and good evil.^ 
 
 Also the teacher of Huss, Stanislaus of Znaim, stood forth at this 
 
 • From IIuss's remarks in the trial above mentioned. Stud. u. Krit. 1837, I, s. 132. 
 
THE FORTY-FrV'E PROPOSITIONS OF WICKLIF. 247 
 
 • 
 
 time as a defenrler of tlie forty-five propositions ; and IIuss notices him 
 as the first who took up the word in defence.^ Still, by the vast ma- 
 jority of votes on the side of the German nation, the condemnation of 
 the jforty-five articles was carried throu.i^h. According to the then 
 arrangements of the university of Prague, tlio Germans, who kept 
 firmly united, would, in all public meetings, of course obtain the vic- 
 tory. The votes were taken by nations ; and the university of Prague 
 was divided into four nations. One was the Bohemian ; the three oth- 
 ers. Bavarian, Saxon, and Polish, of which latter, half were Germans, 
 namely Silesians Accordingly the Bohemians, who were scarcely 
 one to three, muse always succumb. Every victory which the German 
 party won in this way, could only serve to augment the bitter feeling 
 of hostility between the two nations, and between the Wicklifite and 
 anti-Wickiifite parties. The defenders of the writings and doctrines of 
 Wicklif, however, allowed themselves the less to be disturbed by the 
 condemnation pronounced at this convocation, as they had not in fact 
 acknowledged all those propositions to be propositions really laid down 
 by Wicklif. By this condemnation, therefore, nothing or what amounted 
 to nothing had been accomplished ; and the opponents of Wicklif's 
 cause were obliged to look round them and conjure up sharper measures. 
 Already Bohemian prelates themselves complained at the court of Rome, 
 that Wicklif's heresies had spread even to that spot,2 and in the year 
 1405,PopeInnocent VII. was moved thereby to put forth a bull addressed 
 to archbishop Zbynek, calling upon him to suppress and punish the Wick- 
 lifite heresies then spreading in Bohemia. The archbishop complied 
 with this call, and at a synod held in Prague, in the year 140(3, published 
 an ordinance, threatening ecclesiastical penalties against those who 
 presumed to teach the doctrines of Wicklif.3 At the same time he 
 enacted, in the same year, a law for the maintenance of the doctrine 
 of transubstantiation, directing all preachers within his diocese to teach, 
 on Corpus-Christi day and on all other days, the doctrine that, after 
 the words of consecration, the substance of the bread and wine were 
 no longer present, but only body and blood of Christ. The name of Wick- 
 lif, however, was not here mentioned.^ This of course could not afi:ect 
 Huss, as he had never declared himself opposed to the doctrine of 
 transubstantiation. In the next place, it was brought about by the 
 tneasures of the archbishop that, as the three other nations of the uni- 
 versity of Prague had always pronounced against the opinions of Wick- 
 
 • Huss says of him: Reminisceretur, ^ Item anno 1406, D. Zbynko archiepis- 
 
 quomodo primus fuit ad defendendum, ne copus Prag. edidit statutum, et eodem an- 
 
 articuli, quos ipse dicit erroneos, damna- no in synodo publice mandavit, quod qui- 
 
 rentur, Imo et arguebat audacter in con- eunque praedicaret, assereretvel disputaret 
 
 gregatione universitatis. Resp. ad scripta errorres Wiclef, in certas ibidem nomina- 
 
 Mag. Stan, de Znoyma. Hus opp. I pag. tas incideret poenas. Chron. univers. Frag. 
 
 288. Palacky p. 214. 
 
 2 See the words from the Chronicles of * See the ordinance in a paper by the 
 
 Prague University, in Palacky III, 1 s. abbot Stephen of Dola, in the diocese of 
 
 213 : Innocentius papa VII. instigavit et Olmutz, composed in 1408 ; Medulla tri- 
 
 monuit Zbynkonem archiepiscopum Pra- tici sen Anti-Wickleflfus, published by Fez, 
 
 gensera, ut sit diligens et soUicitus ad Thesaurus anecdotorum novissimus torn 
 
 errores Wiclef et haereses exstirpandas. IV, pars 2 pag. 158. 
 Hanc monitionera praelati procuraverunt. 
 
248 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 llf, and therefore in all further measures against them, the only ques- 
 tion was with regard to the Bohemian nation, anions; whom alone these 
 opinions found defenders, the members of this body held, in the year 
 1408, a ^reat convocation, in which the condemnation of those forty- 
 five propositions was again proposed. But as the unconditional con- 
 demnation of them could not, on account of the resistance of the party 
 of lluss, be carried through, such a qualified one was passed as nobody 
 could find fault with, because it was left open to each to explain the 
 propositions in his own sense. It was decreed, namely, that no one 
 should presume to maintain any one of those forty-five propositions, in 
 their heretical, erroneous, or scandalous sense. ^ Men were not satis- 
 fied, therefore, with this measure, by which the desired end could, in 
 no way, be attained. While hitherto every graduate had liberty to read 
 lectures at the university of Prague on any book of a teacher of the uni- 
 versities of Prague, Paris, or Oxford ;2 and this permission had given 
 occasion for the reading of lectures upon many of Wicklifs writings in 
 Prague, and was taken advantage of to spread more widely the enthu- 
 siasm for him and for his doctrines ; the liberty was now restricted, on 
 this particular side. An ordinance was passed that, for the futurfe, no 
 bachelor should hold public lectures on any one of the three tracts 
 of Wicklif, intitled the Dialogue, the Trialogue, and the Be Eucharis- 
 tia ; and no person should make any proposition relating to Wicklifs 
 books and doctrines, a subject of public disputation.^ Neither does this 
 prohibition, therefore, extend to all Wicklifs writings, but only to those 
 in which he either had set forth his doctrine of the holy supper, or the 
 whole of his theological system. 
 
 Up to this time, the good understanding between Huss and the 
 archbishop had not been disturbed, in any open manner. Zbynek 
 could not, as yet, have withdrawn from him his confidence ; he must 
 still have highly appreciated his zeal for the reform of the church, 
 and for the removal of abuses ; for he chose him, as late as the 
 year 1407, to deliver the exhortatory discourse before his clergy as- 
 sembled at a synod of the diocese. We recognize in it those princi- 
 ples with regard to the destination of the clergy, which IIuss enter- 
 tained in common with Matthias of Janow and Wicklif. Tliev were 
 the principles which, in theory and practice, distinguished the clergy 
 who were friendly to reform, and who already bore, in Bohemia, the 
 names clerics evangelicus and panperes sacerdotes Chrlsti* He had 
 chosen for his text the passage in Ephesians 6: 14, and employed these 
 
 ' Qnatenus nemo quemquam illonim. si, Parisiensi vel Oxoniensi mac^istro vel 
 
 articuloriim XLV. aiuk-at ti'iicre, doccrc mafjistris conipilata, et dummodo ista an- 
 
 vc'l dcfcndcrc in sensil)us coram hacreticis, tea tidclitcr correxcrit, et pronuntiatorcm 
 
 aut crroneis, ant scandalosis. Palacky i. assumserit idoneura et valentem. Palacky 
 
 c. D. p. 2-22. ' p. 18S. 
 
 ' Qui vis maf,Mstrorum poterit super quo- ^ I'alacky III, I p- 222. 
 
 libet lil)r() de facultate artitim proprie dicta * I'alctz was disposed afterwards to find 
 
 dare, perse vel per alium idoneum pronun- something arrogant in the claim, which 
 
 tiando; poterit quoque scripta aliorum et seemed to he implied in these appella- 
 
 dicta per se aut per alium prouuntiare, tions, (juod in doctrina et in scriptis se au- 
 
 dummodo sint ab aliquo vel aliquihus fa- dent clerum evangelicum nominare. Ilua 
 
 moso vel famosis de universitate Tragcn- resp. ad scr. Taletz j opera I, pag. 260. 
 
DISCOURSE OF HUSS EEFORE THE DIOCESAN SYNOD. 249 
 
 • 
 
 words for the purpose of bringing the clergy to a consciousness of tlieir 
 vocation, as opposed to the then existing worldliness of the clergy in 
 Bohemia. For the purpose of bringing clearly to view the destination 
 of the clergy, he explains the grounds of the division of Christendom 
 into three orders, which ever lay at bottom of his proposal for the re- 
 form of the entire social state, viz. the clergy, the secular nobility, who 
 should make their power subservient to the promotion of the law of Clirist, 
 and the rest of the people standing in obedience to the two parts, as 
 their leaders in things spiritual and secular. The clergy ought to take 
 the lead of all others in following Christ under the form of a servant, in 
 meekness, humility, purity, and poverty. IIuss was still entangled in 
 the distinction made between the consilia evangelica and the prmcepfa^ 
 above which Matthias of Janow had, as we have earlier seen, already risen 
 in recognizing the equal christian vocation of all men. Huss regarded 
 it as the calling of the clergv to exhibit to all, even in the observance 
 of the " evangelical counsels," a pattern of christian perfection. Hence 
 he must have held to the necessity of celibacy in the clergy. The cler- 
 gy ought literally to fulfil the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount ; 
 therefore never to give an oath ; their yea and nay ought to be suffi- 
 cient. They ought literally to realize what Christ had said in the ser- 
 mon on the mount, on loving our enemies, on bearing wrongs. The 
 thriving of christian life in all others, must therefore be conditioned on 
 the fact that the clergy let their light shine before others, in the literal 
 copying after Christ. It was in the falling away of the clergy from this, 
 their true destination, that Huss, as he here declares, found the cause 
 of the corruptions in the rest of Christendom, the contemplation of which 
 filled his soul, more and more every day, with that heart sorrow which 
 formed one of the strong features of his character. He says in this re- 
 gard, contemplating Christians as soldiers of Christ, and the clergy as 
 those who ought to take the foremost position in the marshalled host ; 
 it is clearly evident that the clergy should lead the order of battle in 
 the spiritual conflict. But if they are unfit for the contest, the victory 
 is seldom or never won; since they, betaking themselves to flight, or 
 struck down and put into confusion, fill the next ranks of the army with 
 despair or irresolution. Now if the clergy are struck down or slain, 
 this will hinder the rest of the army from conquering the enemy^ ; but 
 if they treacherously enter into a league with the enemy, they will pre- 
 pare the way for them to vanquish, more easily and treacherously, the 
 army of our Lord Jesus Christ. For this is the reason why, in our days, 
 the christian army is overcome by the flesh, the world, the devil, and 
 pagans." ^ As Huss considered it a part of the clerical calling to set 
 the example of following Christ, and regarded the clergy, as " vicars of 
 Christ," in this sense, so when they exhibited the opposite of this in 
 their lives, he stigmatizes them as Antichrist ; and accordingly he here 
 expresses, before the archbishop and clerus^ the view which, from the 
 time of Militz, had been transmitted to all the representatives of this 
 reform tendency, and which in the development of the consequences 
 proceeding therefrom, would be directed against the whole hierarchical 
 
 * Hus opp. II, pag. 32. 
 
250 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 fabric, that the true Antichrist was already present in the corrupt clergy, 
 whose life and doctrine stood in mutual co!itradictiou. He also attacks 
 expresslv, in this discourse, tlie countenance t.^,iven to superstition. 
 " Many'— savs he — stand waiting for gifts by letters of fraternities,^ 
 bv far-sought' indulgences, by fictitious relics, by painted images of 
 saints/'^ 
 
 Still the measures which the arch1»ishop, by his interest to support 
 the church and by the injunction received from Rome, was impelled to 
 take to prevent the spread of Wicklifitism, would necessarily bring about 
 by deixrees a change in the relations which had subsisted between Zby- 
 nek and Huss. Tlie archbishop's official, John of Rebel, presided over 
 a judicial examination instituted against several clergymen accused of 
 AV'icklifite errors : Nicholas of Welenowitz, preacher at the church of 
 the Holy Spirit in Prague, Master Matthias Pater of Knin, a certain 
 bachelor Sigmund of Jistebnitz, and others. One of these, Nicho- 
 las of Welenowitz, commonly called Abraham, deserves special notice. 
 lie is said to have asserted that laymen as well as priests might be al- 
 lowed to preach the gospel.^ This is an important fict to us, as an 
 indication of the religious bent of spirit which had passed over from Mat- 
 thias of Janow to the party of Huss, — the tendency which once more 
 broiight up to notice the universal priesthood of Christians. It is also 
 a circumstance marking the character of these clergymen, that at his 
 trial he declined swearing except by the living God, that he would not 
 swear by the crucifix, the gospels, or the saints,* because no oath could 
 be taken on things created. Huss took part with the man in reference 
 to this point, honoring the conscientiousness which refused to transfer 
 to any created thing the honor due to God alone. He opposed to those 
 judges the authority of St. Chrysostom.4 In vain was the intercession 
 
 ' Documents whereby certain spiritual * We take this from the Trial of Huss, 
 
 societies adopted otiiers into the comma- in the year 1414, a document of wliiih 
 
 nitv of their merits. A.L^ainst abuses of much use lias been made already. The 
 
 this sort, and the coniidence placed in words of Huss are : Istud dixi coram in- 
 
 them, Matthias of Janow had often spoken, quisitoribus Majristro ISIiiuritio et Jaroslao 
 
 Attacking; these epistolae fratcrnitatum cpiscopo, et coram vicario in sjjiritualibus, 
 
 was reckoned also among tlie peculiarities quando vexabatit sacerdotem Alnaham, 
 
 of Wicklifitism, as we may see from what dic-entes coram me, quod nohiissct jurare. 
 
 the abbot Stei)li('n of Dol'a says about it Ad qu^m dixi coram ipsis: Non vis tii 
 
 in tlie ]»aper cited above. Ile'trics to de- jurare ? Qui resixnidit : Juravi ipsis per 
 
 fend them as special testimonies of love deum vivum. quod volo veritateui dicere, 
 
 to persons who had conferred jicculiar et ipsi ur-^eliaut me. nt jurarcin supra 
 
 favors: 8i quas autem tradimus humiUter evanp-lium ct iuia<:iiiein crucitixi. Quibus 
 
 et devote pro deo peteiuiluis societatis ]>e- ejro Joannes Has dixi. quod sanctus Jo. 
 
 culiaris in Christo iiteras. nihil aliud agi- Clirysostomus nos vocat stultos, qui ex- 
 
 tur. ubi recta iiitentio custoditur, nisi ut jH'tunt juramcntum super creatura, (juasi 
 
 gaivis communiliusecdesiae praecilms. ali- majus sit jurare per creaturam. quam per 
 
 quid sj)ecialis bcneficii specialibus i)ene- deum. Kt statiui vicarius in sjiiritualibu!* 
 
 factoribus faciamus pro talibus in vita et nomine Bibel dixit i'uriose : Ha Ma<rister, 
 
 in morte i)ariter. L. c. \n\ir. 240. vos vcuistis nue ad audienduni, et non ar 
 
 ^ Multi enim stant quaerentcs tri"Tiera puendum. Cui dixi : Ecce vos isium sa- 
 
 per fratcrnitatum Iiteras, per ex<piisitas cerdotcm condemnarc. dicentcs cum tenere 
 
 induL'entias, per Hctas rerujuias et per errorem Waldcnsium, et ipse juravit vobis 
 
 imaghies coloratas. Vajt- 36. per deum. estne hoc justum ? Et alia mul- 
 
 ^ From the Acts of the Consi^Jtory of ta lotincbar iis. See Stud. u. Krit. 1. c. 
 
 Prajrue. of the vcar 1408, cited by Taliicky page 139 and 140. 
 in, 1 p. 223, Note 287. 
 
ZBYNEK'S measures against WrCKLIFITISM. 251 
 
 of IIuss. IIo was tlirown into prison, and after some days released, 
 but banished from the diocese. IIuss, in a letter, vehemently reproached 
 the archbishop on account of this proceeding. " What is this ! that men 
 stained with innocent blood, men guilty of every crime, shall be found 
 walking abroad almost with im|)unity ; while humble priests, who spend 
 all their efforts to destro}^ sin, who fulfd their duties under your church 
 guidance, in a good temper, never follow avarice, but give them- 
 selves for nothing to God's service and the proclamati(m of his word, are 
 cast into dungeons as heretics, and must suifer banishment for preach- 
 ing the gospel ? " ^ Here, for the first time, the thing came out openly 
 wliich we have said was inevitable, that although the archbishop, at the 
 beginning, countenanced the reform tendency in IIuss, yet the opposite 
 character of their principles and of their tempers, must lead to a ru[)ture 
 between them as soon as the activity of Huss as a reformer passed be- 
 yond a certain limit. And when the first impulse had been given, ho 
 could not fail to be carried still farther, by the movements in this pe- 
 riod of a great crisis of the church. A document which bears testi- 
 mony to the extreme excitement between the Wicklifite party in B )]»e- 
 mia and the representatives of the old hierarchical system in its wliole 
 extent, is a work composed in these times, about the year 1408, by the 
 abl^ot of the convent of Dola, in the diocese of Olmutz ; the object of 
 which was to guard against and to refute the Wicklifite heresies. Dola 
 wqs a man by no means disposed to defend the abuses of simony and the 
 bad conduct of the clergy and monks. He complains of it as a grievance, 
 that important men in Bohemia, a country hitherto exempt from all here- 
 sies, had contributed to bring their nation into bad repute with foreigners, 
 particularly with the Germans; that they openly and secretly dissemi- 
 nated the Wicklifite doctrines ;2 that the writings of Wicklif were scat- 
 tered over the whole world. ^ lie describes the party as one that boasted 
 of having first made familiar the understanding of the Scriptures, and 
 taken pains to have the gospel preached everywhere. He quotes from 
 their own lips the words : " We preach ; we proclaim the word of God ; 
 ■sve guide the people. ^ He gives us to understand that they attacked 
 all others as ignorant men (no doubt in reference to their knowledge of 
 the Scripture) ; that they were opponents of the monks, of the conven- 
 tual clergy ; as the latter, in fact, were the most decidedly opposed to 
 the more liberal christian tendency.^ Already, too, he found it neces- 
 sary to defend the doctrine of indulgences against the objections of this 
 party .6 The author of this work attacks no individual name ; he does 
 not even mention that of Huss, Avhom he undoubtedly had in his eye 
 
 ' Qnaliter hoc est, quod incestuosi et ^ Stephanus Dolanus Antiwikleffus, by 
 
 varic criininosi absque rijio correctionis — Pez, thesaur. torn. IV pars 2 pag. 184. 
 
 iiu'c'duut libcre, saceidotes autem humiles, ^ Quae in orbe terrarum bine inde dis- 
 
 spinas pcccati evellentcs, otbcium Vestri currunt scripta per chartulas. Ibid, pag 
 
 iuipU'iites rejriuiinis ex bono atfcctu, non 213. 
 
 sc(jiK'ntes avaritiam, sed <::ratis pro dco se * Ibid. pas:. 209. 
 
 ottl'vontes ad evaniielisationis hiborem, • * Non sumus, inquiunt, sicut caeteri ho* 
 
 tain(puim baeretici manit'ipantur carceri- minum, idiotae et ciaustrales. Ibid, 
 
 bus, et exilium propter evangelisationem ^ Ibid. pag. 214. 
 i))^ius evanirelii patiuntur? caet. Falack 
 111. 1 p. 223, Note 288. 
 
252 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 in spcal<ing of " men who seemed to be of some consequence." i But at 
 this time the Wickhfites, so called, would be treated with more forbear- 
 ance, a? the opposition within the Bohemian party itself, at the univer- 
 sitv of Prague, had not as yet broken out ; and the abbot himself had, 
 earlier, stood on friendly terms with IIuss, and describes him as a man 
 formerly inclined to support the church, and likcminded with himself.^ 
 
 But '^al though such excitement existed between the two parties, yet 
 archbishop Zbynek thought that enough had been done on his part for 
 the suppression of the Wicklifite heresy. He may not have been, him- 
 self, so very zealous in this matter. lie had his reasons for exercising 
 forbearance towards the party of IIuss, which had important adherents 
 in all ranks of society. Violent steps might, in the present times of fer- 
 mentation, lead to fearful commotions ; and King Wenceslaus had not, 
 since the accession of Pope Bonif\\ce IX., stood on the best terms with 
 the Roman court, as the latter had failed to afford him the desired as- 
 sistance in his struggle with Rupert for the imperial dignity. His 
 openly avowed breach with the court of Rome, would be favorable to 
 the reform party in Bohemia ; and archbishop Zbynek could not reckon 
 on the king's support in carrying out his measures against Wicklifitism. 
 As it might be very prejudicial to the king's interests in relation to 
 German affairs, that suspicions should be raised against the Bohemians 
 by the spread of reports importing that they were inclined to the Wick- 
 lifite heresy, he was the more urgent with the archbishop to set on foot 
 an investigation which should vindicate the good character of the Bohe- 
 mians. In July of the year 1408, Zbynek declared, at a diocesan synod 
 held at Prague, that it'had been found, after investigation, that no Wick- 
 lifite heresy existed at present in Bohemia.^ At the same time, however, 
 he ordered that the writings of Wicklif sliould be delivered up, — an 
 order which ended in mere words, the bishop not having the power, 
 and perhaps at that time not even a serious intention, of actually car- 
 rying out so radical a measure. 
 
 Up to this time, the Bohemians at the university of Prague were still 
 united together, by a common national interest, against the predomi- 
 nance of the Germans. The party favorable to reform would be the 
 most desirous to overthrow this preponderance, the Germans being, on 
 account of their philosophical and theological opinions, the fiercest oppo- 
 
 > Qui viclcntur esse aliquid. himself as an old friend of IIuss; which 
 
 ' Tu vcro homo olim uiianimis, qui si- confusion was already noticed by the Bene- 
 
 mnl niecum dul<-es capiebas cil)os, nia«,nii- dictine Pez, the editor of the writings of 
 
 iicasti super me supplantationem, in liis tliis abbot. 
 
 Antilmssus, Pez thes. torn. IV pars. 2, pajr. ' See what Palacky (III, 1 p. 224). re- 
 
 380. Cochlajus cites this passage and much marks, on the authority of certain MS. 
 
 otiier matter from this book in his work records, and the words of the Jurist, Mas- 
 
 llistoriae Ilussitarum lib. I. pag.39; but he ter Jensenitz, in his Hepetitio pro defen- 
 
 names the author Stephen I'alt^tz. Doubt- sione causae Joann. Ilus : Cum in regno 
 
 less he was led to confound him with Ste- lioemiae nullus lidei erroneus vel haereti- 
 
 phen Taletz, on account of his having the cus hujuscjue sit eompertus vel convictu.s, 
 
 same christian name, Stejihen, and be- prout pronunciatio principum et l)aronura 
 
 cause the abbot in tlic place cited, where inter dominum Sbynconcm piae memonae 
 
 Cochlaus instead of slnml reads sunel, archiej)iscopum olim I'ragensem et partem 
 
 •which would give a totally ditferent sense adversam approbat. Ilus opp.I fol. 832, 2. 
 at variance with the context, speaks of 
 
MORE MODERATE PROCEEDINGS OF ZBYNEK. 253 
 
 nents of the new theological tendency ; and by their cooperation, as 
 had been sliown at the convocation assembled to condemn the forty-five 
 articles of Wicklif, all measures directed against this tendency might 
 easily be carried through. Combined, in the case of IIuss and Jerome, 
 ^vith the religious interest, was that of patriotism ; and on this side 
 they might count on receiving the support of many who did not agree 
 witii them in reli;:iou3 and doctrinal matters. IIuss, the confessor of 
 queen Sophia, could for this reason exercise a greater mflaence at 
 court. His friend Jerome moved in the most respectable circles. Tliey 
 were supported, in this cause, by the most influential of the nobility. 
 Add to this that King Wenceslaus had a strong political motive, con- 
 nected with his politico-ecclesiastical plans, for favoring the Bohemian 
 more than the German party in the university. Meantime took place 
 the renunciation of both the rival popes, by the great majority of the 
 cardinals, and the proclamation of the council of Pisa. The king, who 
 had been urged by France, and had separated from Gregory XII, was 
 disposed to embrace the cause of the council. In this view, he might 
 expect more support from the party in favor of reform, tlian from the 
 Germans who were devoted to the cause of papal despotism. Thus he 
 was induced to put forth an edict, whereby a change was made in the 
 relation of votes at the university of Prague, three being given to the 
 Bohemians, while only one was allowed to the foreigners. Teachers and 
 students of the German nation carried into effect, in the month of Sep- 
 tember, a resolution which they had bound themselves, under the most 
 sacred oaths, to execute in case the king would give no heed to their 
 remonstrances, and forsook Prague in vast numbers. The number who 
 left, it seems, cannot be exactly estimated. They who reckon highest, 
 estimate it at 44,000 ; the lowest estimate is 5,000. i Only 2,000 stu- 
 dents are said to have been left in Prague. 
 
 This was an event which, in its consequences, had the most impor- 
 tant influence on the development of the contest, which is now the 
 subject of our contemplation. The Bohemian party at the university 
 had now gained decidedly the ascendency, as was soon made evident 
 by the choice of Huss as rector of the university. But it turned out 
 here as it usually does in political, ecclesiastical, and religious affairs, 
 with combinations formed of conflicting elements, and held together 
 only by the bond of a common opposition. The national interest had 
 thus far brought into union with Huss a set of men, who were unlike 
 him in spirit and temper, and were only not conscious as yet of the 
 opposition really existing between them. A crisis must now arrive, 
 which would operate to separate those who valued the interests of 
 Christianity and reform above all things else, from those who were not 
 disposed in any case to renounce the dominant church tendency. The 
 decisive events which transpired in this stormy period must soon bring 
 about the dissolution of such a union, which was no longer held to- 
 
 ' See the dissertation of J. Th. Held: Pelzel on the history of the Emperor Wen- 
 " Illustratio rerum anno 1409 in universi- ceslaus, and Palacky, 1. c. 
 tate Pragena gcstarum," and the essays of 
 
 VOL. V. 22 
 
254 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 gether hy the interest of a common opposition ; and men ^vlio had 
 fought side bv side must be led to fight against each other. Men who 
 had been friends must become the most violent enemies. Amongst 
 those who left the university -were to be found eminent scholars who 
 obtained important situations abroad. This emigration was tlie occa- 
 sion of the founding of the new university at Leipsic. And tlse most 
 injurious reports were now circulated abroad respecting the heresies 
 of the party of Huss. All who were detennined to maintain the old 
 church system, not merely the friends of the papal absolutism of tlie 
 middle age, but also those disposed to favor reform, the adherents of 
 the Parisian theology, believed they saw^ a dangerous revolution, 
 threatening the overthrow of all ecclesiastical order, breaking forth 
 from Bohemia, and were therefore of the opinion that every effort 
 should be made to avert this dancirer. The citv of Prague suffered a 
 great loss by this emigration. Even commerce felt the blow ; as many 
 merchants had sent their sons to Prague with a view to push their 
 business in that city, and these young men had in part got themselves 
 matriculated in order to enjoy the privileges of the university. An 
 odious light was cast upon Jerome and Huss as the authors of the 
 mischief; and this was marked as one of the ruinous effects of reli- 
 gious schism. Jerome of Prague must therefore defend himself and 
 his friend against the charges brought against them on this side also, 
 at the council of Constance ; and he sets forth the motives of patriot- 
 ism, which had induced them to obtain this decree from Kiuir Wen- 
 ceslaus. After having given an account of the ascendency which the 
 Germans had gained ever after the foundation of the University of 
 Prague, he said, that when he and Huss and other nobles, in Bohe- 
 mia, perceived that the whole effect of all this would be to exterminate 
 the Bohemian language, they had gone to the king ; and he had per- 
 suaded his friend Huss, in his Bohemian sermons, to make the people 
 take notice that they ought no longer to tolerate such a thing, nor 
 suffer themselves to be so treated by the Germans ; and so, with tlie 
 help of the Bohemian nobility and others of their countrymen, they liad 
 finally carried the thing through. i In like manner Huss was accused, 
 as we find it laid to his charge in his last trial in Prague, in the year 
 1414, of having driven the German students from the university. 
 But he replied ; the German students were driven away by nobody. 
 Their own oath alone drove them away ; they pledged themselves on 
 penalty of excommunication for perjury, the forfeiture of their honor, 
 and a pecuniary mulct of 60 groats, that not one of them would re- 
 main at the university, if they did not have the right of three votes. 
 According to the law of God, and by natural right, the Bohemians 
 ought to have the first claim to offices within the Bohemian realm ; 
 
 ' Ip«;e vcro Hicronymus vidcns hoc. una Bolicmicalcm, quod talia ampliiis susti- 
 
 cum Mag. Joann. Hus iverunt ad rt';,'c'ni nere non debereiit, quod ita iruitaroniur 
 
 Bohemiac, condudentes, quod talia csscnt per Tcutonicos. Jerome, in his hist liear- 
 
 res mali exempli ct teuderent in de.struc- inpj at Constance. See V. d. Hardt, acta 
 
 tionem lin<,Miae Bohemiealis Et persua- concilii Constantiensis torn, IV, pars 2, 
 
 sit Map. Joann. Hus, quod in sermonibus pag. 758. 
 Boheraicalibus deberet inducere populum 
 
DEPARTURE OF THE GERMANS FROM PRAGUE. 255 
 
 just as the French have In France, and the Germans in their coun- 
 tries. Of what sort of use would it be for a Bohemian parish priest 
 or bishop to settle down in Germany, if he were not familiar with the 
 German tongue, and therefore had about the same power over his 
 flock as a dumb dog which could not bark ? *' The same power would 
 a German have among us Bohemians. Knowing, therefore, that this 
 is contrary to the law of God and natural right, I say that it is not 
 allowable." ^ 
 
 Meantime, King Wenceslaus, who had never been a friend of the 
 hierarchy, became daily more involved in controversy with the arch- 
 bishop and the clergy. The influence of this was, that he promoted 
 thereby, without intending it, the movements of reform, besides contri- 
 buting on the one hand to strengthen the party of Huss, and, on the 
 other, to draw upon him still more numerous and. more dangerous 
 enemies. The archbishop and clergy would not abandon Pope Gre- 
 gory XII, whose obedience the king had renounced, nor recognize the 
 general council assembled at Pisa, whose cause Wenceslaus sought to 
 promote. The king was for carrying out his will in his own states. 
 He met with fierce resistance from the clergy ; many refused to conti- 
 nue divine worship. Violent attacks were made on the archbishop 
 and the clergy by the king and his favorites, who, partly as the king's 
 instruments, partly from private grudges, eagerly sought to humble 
 the prelates. Many betook themselves to flight ; their goods were 
 confiscated. The king, too, was probably inclined to indulge in acts 
 of arbitrary self-Avill. Huss now considered it to be his duty to de- 
 clare himself in favor of the cause of the council in his sermons, and 
 to promote it in every way, as there was far more reason to expect 
 something might be done for the reform of the church by the council 
 than by either of the popes. By so doing he would gain the favor of 
 the king, but so much the more draw upon himself the enmity of the 
 archbishop and the clergy ; and this was attended with important 
 consequences on the later events. Huss himself points to this in his 
 letter hereafter to be noticed to the college of Cardinals in Rome, as 
 the prime cause of the violent rupture between him and the arch- 
 bishop. He says, the grievous oppressions which he was compelled to 
 bear, ori"rinated in the fact, that at the time of the renunciation of 
 Pope Gregory XII, he had strongly recommended and constantly 
 preached to all the nobles, princes, and lords, to the clergy and the 
 people, the duty of taking part with the general council for restoring 
 unity to the church. Hence the archbishop Zbynek had forbidden to all 
 masters of the university who sided with the college of cardinals, and 
 particularly to himself, by a pubhc notice posted on the churches, the 
 exercise of all priestly functions within his diocese.2 In like manner 
 Huss expressed himself, on this subject, at the council of Constance. 
 He was accused, namely, of having sowed discord and schism be- 
 tween the spiritual and secular powers ; hence had arisen the perse- 
 
 ' Depos. test, in the Stud. u. Krit. a. a. ' Hus opp. I fol. 93. 
 O. p. 131. 
 
256 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 cntlon of the bishop and the clergy, and the plundering of their goods. 
 To this IIuss replied : Nothing of the kind had happened through any 
 fault of his. The schism between church and state had fallen out ear- 
 lier, and it had arisen in this way: King Wenceslaus had been induced 
 to abandon Pope Gregory XII, who favored Duke Rupert of Bavaria 
 in the competition for the imperial dignity, and to apply to the college 
 of cardinals, which held out to him the hope of obtaining the vote of the 
 pope then to be elected. Now as archbishop Zbynek and the clergy 
 opposed the king in this step, and many suspended divine worship and 
 left Prague, and in fi\ct were followed by the archbishop himself, the 
 king had easilv granted that the goods of those who had fled to avoid 
 being compelled to side with the king, should be taken from them.' 
 By these commotions IIuss was led, in setting forth the necessity of a 
 reformation of the church to his numerous hearers in Bethlehem chapel, 
 to portray the corruption of the clergy, in all its parts, in dark colors 
 indeed, but certainly not exceeding the truth. For this he had often 
 been re[)roached, both at that time and more recently. While the clergy 
 heard him with pleasure when he fearlessly attacked the reigning vices 
 amoni:: other classes of men, they could no longer tolerate him when he 
 attacked their own. They laid a complaint against him before the king ; 
 but the king, who was not displeased with what he had done, replied to 
 them : When IIuss preached sharp discourses against the princes and 
 lords, they had complacently looked on ; now their turn had come, 
 and they must make the best of it. Upon this was founded the charge 
 that IIuss had stirred up the laity to rebellion against the clergy. On the 
 occasion of his trial at Prague, in the year 1414, he was forced to de- 
 fend himself against this charge ; and he said : " I hope that, by the 
 grace of God, I have never preached in an unbecoming manner. 
 Against the vices of the clergy I have undoubtedly preached ; and I 
 hope that I shall preach against them before the council (of Constance) ; 
 not in any extravagant and irregular way, nor so as to show any dispo- 
 sition to injure their good name, but so as to restore their good name, 
 and to give them occasion for correcting their faults. -For he who seeks 
 to remove the vices in his neighbors, from good motives, seeks most ef- 
 fectually to restore their good name. 0, how much would it conduce 
 to the good name of every one, if, whenever he heard his vices rebuked 
 in a sermon, he would renounce them, and afterwards, by a good life, 
 secure to himself the praise of God and all holy men." When he was 
 accused of drawing away, by his sermons, the laity of other churches 
 from their parish priests and leading them to disobey those priests, he 
 re[)lied, that he had never, in any way, enticed subjects from a holy 
 obedience to their superiors, but from unlawful obedience ; he had 
 taught that they shoutd not f )llow those set over them and parish priests 
 m doing that which is wrong.^ It was cast as a special reproach upon 
 IIuss, as it had already been before upon Matthias of Janow,^ that he 
 openly attacked, before the people, in the Bohemian tongue, the vices 
 
 ' See ILirdt torn. IV, pars 2, pag. 311 ct ' Sec Stud. u. Crit. a. a. 0. p. 143. 
 312. ^ ISee above p. 174. 
 
nUSS IN CONTENTION WITH THE CLERGY. 257 
 
 of the clergy. In reference to this, Cardinal d'Allly afterwards said to 
 him, at the council of Constance, " Certainly thou hast not observed a 
 just moderation in thy sermons and writings. Oughtest thou not to 
 have adapted thy sermons to the particular needs of thy hearers ? For 
 what was the necessity or advantage of preaching before the peo[)le 
 against cardinals, when no cardinal was present ? Such things should 
 rather be said in their presence, than to their injury before the laity." 
 To this IIuss replied : " Priests and other learned men were present 
 to hear my sermons,^ and what I said was on their account, and for the 
 purpose of warning them." 2 Huss, at some later period, composed a 
 tract, in vindication of himself against the charge of having done wrong 
 in openly attacking the vices of the clergy in his sermons, and pointed 
 out the reasons which had led him to do so. He states, in particular, 
 the following good ends, which such discourses might subserve : first, 
 it might be of advantage to the clergy themselves, that they should be 
 made ashamed of their faults and led to repentance ; secondly, that the 
 worth of good clergymen would shine brighter by the contrast. Thirdly, 
 that good clergymen would, by comparison with the bad, gain so much 
 the more the love of the people, and bad ones fall so much the more 
 into contempt. Fourthly, that the good clergy and laity thus learned 
 to avoid the bad, as mangy sheep and wolves. And he applies here the 
 words of Christ on the final separation (Matt. 13: 41), which, after 
 the manner of Matthias of Janow,^ he understands as referring to her- 
 alds or preachers, designated as Christ's angels, sent forth in the last 
 times for the purpose of separating the good from the bad. Fifthly, 
 that the simple laity might not imitate those wolves in their life and 
 conduct. Sixthly, that the sinful laity might be stripped of every ex- 
 cuse ; since it was their wont to say, The priests preach against our 
 unchastity and other vices, and say nothing of their own unchastity 
 and their own vices. Either this is no sin, or they are for monopolizing 
 , it to themselves. And since it was their wont to say, The priests be- 
 hold the mote in our eyes, but not the beam in their own ; let them 
 first cast out the beam in their own eyes, and then tell us that we 
 should cast out the mote from ours ; and since, again, it was their wont 
 to say, Why dost thou reprove me ? — the priests do the same ; why 
 dost thou not reprove them ? Is it perchance no sin in their case ? 
 Next, because if the prelate be a bad man, perhaps an Antichrist, and 
 if, perhaps on account of his wickedness, the people will not obey him 
 even in what is right ; the preacher is bound to call upon them to act 
 according to the example of Christ ; to follow the precepts which such 
 lay down, but not imitate their actions (Matt. 23: 2, 3 and 1 Pet. 2: 
 18). Finally, because the students, when they listen with the people 
 to sermons attacking the vices of the clergy, seek to avoid such, and to 
 prepare themselves, in a better way, for their future calling ; or if they 
 
 » What Huss here says is confirmed by ' Quia sermonibus meis sacerdotes et 
 
 the words of the abbot of Dola in his Dia- alii docti viri interfuerunt, illorum causa 
 
 logues volatilis adv. Hussum : Auditorum haec a me dicta sunt, ut sibi caverent. 
 
 luultorum millium diversi status et gene- See Hardt torn. I V^ pars 2, pag. 317. 
 
 ris supputatio. Fez thesaur. torn. IV, pars ^ See above, p. 1''5. 
 2, pag. 462. 
 
 22* 
 
258 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 are conscious of beinfji; guilty of still greater sins, which would be incom- 
 patible with their undertaking so sacred a vocation, they are moved to 
 forsake them betimes.^ In a later performance, IIuss appeals to the 
 maxim that sin can at most hurt a good man only when it is not knoAvn • 
 to be sin ; when exposed, it is rendered harmless.2 Another contempo- 
 rary, the Bohemian theoloirian Andrew of Broda, says, to be sure, in a 
 writing addressed to lluss, that he was not persecuted expressly be- 
 cause he attacked the vices of the clergy ; for the same thing had been 
 done already, before him, by John Militz, Conrad of Waldhausen, and 
 John Stekna.3 But it is evident, from our preceding narrative, that the 
 two first-named individuals did actually draw down upon themselves 
 persecution by their castigatory sermons against the clergy. It may 
 be gathered from the words of Matthias of Janow, cited on a former page, 
 how certainly such castigatory preachers exposed themseh^es to perse- 
 cutions and to defamation as heretics ; and it lay in the very nature 
 of the case that, as the excited feelings between the two parties, that 
 of the dominant clen][v and of the friends of reform, increased in in- 
 tensity, so the persecutions against the castigatory preachers would in- 
 crease in violence. Now as it concerns Huss, his connection with 
 Wicklifitism, and the complication of his cause with many other mat- 
 ters which we have pointed out, contributed no doubt to aggravate his 
 case. And as he cultivated the growth of that which had been sown 
 by his predecessors, so he was under the necessity also of reaping, in 
 the bad as well as the good sense, what they had but sown. 
 
 The clergy of Prague, who had already, near the end of the year 
 1408, entered a complaint against Huss before the archbishop, re- 
 newed their complaint in still stronger terms during the 3'ear in which, 
 for the reasons already mentioned, the breach grew more violent. The 
 charges Avhich they brought against Huss were as follows : that he stir- 
 red up the people against the clergy, the Bohemians against the Ger- 
 mans ; preached disrespect to the church and disregard to her power , 
 of punishing ; styled Rome the seat of Antichrist, and declared every 
 clergyman who demanded a fee for distributing the sacrament a here- 
 tic ; that he openly praised Wicklif, and had expressed the wish that 
 his soul might finally arrive where Wicklif's soul was.-* In reference 
 to the charge relating to his opinion of Wicklif, Huss in his trial at 
 Prague, in the year 1414, remarked : " I say, and have said, that 
 Wicklif was, as I hope, a good Christian ; and I hope he is in the king- 
 dom of heaven ; and so too have I expressed myself in my sermons. 
 
 ' See the trart Dc arprncndo clero pro ' Andrew of Broda. in his Rcsponsio to 
 
 conrionc. IIus opp. I, fol. 150, 2 sq. the epistola, qua a Joann. Has tontatus 
 
 * NuMaaimMii res sic exteruiinat bonum, fuerat, ut vol in partem ejus transiret, vol 
 
 qucniaihnodum simuhitum bonum. Nam saltern non obsisteret : Nam et ab antiquis 
 
 manitc'Stum malum tainquam malum fu- temporibus Milieius, Conradus, Sezekna 
 
 gitur et cavetur. Malum autem sub spe- ot alii (piam j)lurimi contra clericos prae- 
 
 cie boni celatum, dum non cojjnoscitur, dicaverunt. Sec Cochlaeus, hist. Huss. 
 
 nee cavetur, sod ctiam cpiasi bonum susci- lil). I. i)a<r. 42. 
 
 pitur et non conjunctum est bono, id est * J'alacky III, 1, p. 246. 
 Christo, ideo cxterminat bonum Respon- 
 6io ad scriptum octo doctorum, Opp. J, fol. 
 305, 2. 
 
HUSS IN CONTENTION WITH THE CLERGY. 259 
 
 Hence I hope also to-day, thougli I never affirmed it as a fact, tliat Wickllf 
 belonged to the number of the saved ; because I do not choose to condemn 
 any man, respecting whom! have no testimony of Scripture and no revela- 
 tion, no spiritual knowledge, that he belongs to the number of tlie repro 
 bate ; for our Saviour says. Judge not, that ye be not judged." ^ 
 
 On the presentation of these complaints, archbishoi) Zbynek charged 
 his inquisitor, Master Mauritius of Prague, to intjuire into them, and at 
 the same time to examine by virtue of what authority it was that ser- 
 mons and divine worship were held in Bethlehem chai)el. We perceive 
 here, already, a wish in the archbishop to find some reason for putting 
 a stop to those labors of IIuss in Bethlehem chapel which exerted so 
 great an influence on the people. It is much to be questioned whether 
 IIuss, under the existing circumstances, when the bonds of the diocese 
 were relaxed by discordant opinions respecting the recognition of the 
 council of Pisa, would have acknowledged the competency of that spir- 
 itual court. He himself, however, addressed to Rome a complaint 
 against the archbishop, and the latter was cited to Rome on the 14th 
 of December of the year 1409. Yet in the meanwhile the more gene- 
 ral commotions in the church brought about a change in the whole sit- 
 uation of the affair. 
 
 After the council of Pisa had successfully asserted itself as the supreme 
 tribunal of the church, the archbishop dared no longer to resist. He ac- 
 knowledged Alexander V, the pope appointed by the council. But when 
 the cause of the council had made good its way through Bohemia, Huss 
 received no thanks for what he had done in the struggle with the domi- 
 nant church party for the furtherance of the cause of the council. 
 Zbynek was able to obtain more from the pope for giving up his oppo- 
 sition. His complaints, laid before the latter, respecting the dissemina- 
 tion of the Wicklifite heresy in these districts, met with the more ready 
 acceptance because of his submission ; and Alexander V. was induced 
 by the archbishop to put forth, soon afterwards and as early as De- 
 cember of the year 1409, a bull in which he declares he had heard that 
 the heresies of Wicklif, and especially his denial of the doctrine of tran- 
 substantiation, was spreading far and wide in Bohemia. He called 
 upon the archbishop to employ vigorous measures for the suppression 
 of these heresies. He should cause all the writings of Wicklif to be de- 
 livered up into his hands, appoint a committee of four doctors of theol- 
 ogy and two doctors of canon law to examine the same, and proceed in 
 conformity with the judgment they should give. All clergymen who re- 
 fused to deliver up those writings, or who should defend Wicklifite here- 
 sies, he should cause to be arrested and deprived of their benefices, 
 and in case of necessity the aid of the secular power should be called in. 
 As private chapels served to spread errors among the people, sermons 
 for the future should be preached, in Bohemia, only in cathedrals, 
 parish and conventual churches, and prohibited in all private churches.^ 
 This papal bull did not arrive in Bohemia until ten weeks after it had 
 
 » Depos. test. 1. c. p. 129 and 130. ' For Alexander's bull, see Kajnaldi an- 
 
 nales ecclesiastic, torn. XVII, pag. 396. 
 
260 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 been put forth, and was proclaimed on the 9th of March, 1410. It was 
 the first in the series of great convulsions, wliich the Bohemian church 
 was destined henceforth to suffer, the beginning of the great com- 
 motions in the midst of which Huss was borne on, from one step in ad- 
 vance to another. Zbynek had probably been the more confident that 
 by means of this expression of the supreme authority of the church he 
 should be able to crush the party at a blow, because King Wenceslaus 
 had not only recognized Alexander V. as a pope elected by the council 
 favored by himself, but in addition to this had, in earlier times, been 
 on terms of personal friendship with the new pope. For the latter, when 
 Cardinal Villargi, had decidedly supported the cause of the king in his 
 competition for the imperial dignity ; and it might therefore be ex- 
 pected that the king would be ready to evince his gratitude by obedi- 
 ence to all his ordinances. But the bull, which bore evidence on its 
 face of being a work of Zbynek, aimed particularly against Huss and 
 his friends, was received with great indignation by important men in 
 Bohemia and about the king's person. In the present excited state of 
 feeling, men easily foresaw that great disturbances mivst necessarily 
 arise if the archbishop carried the bull into execution. The cause of 
 Huss was espoused by the most eminent of the nobility around the per- 
 son of the king.i By their influence the king's prejudices were excited 
 against the bull and against Zbynek the author of it. His suspicions 
 may have been aroused against Zbynek as an enemy to the realm, the 
 man who had brought it into the bad odor of heresy, though he himself 
 had, as Huss asserted, very recently declared it, as the result of an in- 
 vestigation made under the sanction of the assembly in Prague already 
 mentioned, that no Wicklifite heresy existed at present in Bohemia. 
 The bull was declared to be in many ways a garbled and interpolated one, 
 and therefore of no force. Huss himself excited suspicions against it 
 on this ground, and employed at first every lawful means in his power, 
 under the circumstances of those times, to Avithhold obedience while 
 he showed all respect to the Roman church. He appealed from the 
 pope male informato to the pope melius informandum. The archbishop, 
 however, was not to be disturbed by all this. He issued his prohibition 
 against preaching in private chapels, and applying this also to Bethle- 
 hem chapel, Huss thought this contrary to the right granted in the 
 foundation-charter ; he thought he was secured from harm himself by 
 his appeal ; and at all events was determined to act on the principle 
 that it was right to obey God rather than men, and that no man should 
 be induced to desist from a divine vocation by the arbitrary will of an 
 individual. Zbynek issued, moreover, a command that all the writings 
 
 * His connection with those in power ciplcs on the minds of the people and of 
 
 was an odious imputation brought against the knights, from which everything else 
 
 Huss hv the above mentioned abbot of resulted as a matter of course ; just as in 
 
 Dola ; Et popuhiris vulgi favor et saecu- later times Luther acquired, without scck- 
 
 lare braehium praestabat manifestum prae- ing it, his mighty influence over the minds 
 
 sidium. Pez thes. IV, 2, pag. 390. But of tlie ])eople and the knights, througli tho 
 
 Huss stood by no means in need of the ]>o\ver of the truths whiili he ])roclaimed. 
 
 secular power to promote the spread of his From the respectable knights and barons, 
 
 prniciples ; but it was a consequence of however, the influence in Bohemia passed 
 
 the influence of his mind and of his prin- over to the kinjj. 
 
DELIVERING UP OF WICKLIF'S WRITINGS. 261 
 
 of Wickllf sliould be delivered up to liiin for examination within six days. 
 Huss obeyed this injunction, declaring himself ready (which certainly 
 "Nvas honestly meant on his part, and cannot justly be ascri))ed to any 
 motive of pride) to condemn tliem himself, whenever an error could be 
 pointed out in them. Zhynek now actually proceeded, after many 
 writings of Wicklif had been delivered up, to appoint a committee of 
 examination in the manner ]n'escribed in the bull ; and this committee 
 pronounced sentence of condemnation on a certain number of Wicklif's 
 ■writings : the Dialogue, the Trialogue, and also (a thing which was 
 afterwards particularly noticed by the friends of Wicklif, and with 
 good reason, and which would cause the whole affiiir to be regarded in 
 a more unfavorable light) on writings of simply philosophical import, as 
 for exam{ile his important work on the reality of general conceptions, 
 and on works containing nothing but mathematical and physical disqui- 
 sitions, as their titles sufficiently indicated. These books were all to be 
 committed to the flames, and thus put out of the way of doing harm. 
 The very announcement of this sentence produced disturbances. At a 
 convocation of the university, it was resolved to send in a petition to 
 the king, that he would prevent the execution of such a sentence, on 
 account of the extreme peril to which it would expose the peace of the 
 university and of all Bohemia.' The king promised the delegates of the 
 university that he would comply with their request. The archbishop, on 
 hearing of this, hastened to get the start of the king ; and on the next 
 day, the 16th of June, repeated the proclamation of the above sentence 
 on the writings of Wicklif. When the king learned of this, he caused 
 the archbishop to be asked, whether it was really his intention to burn 
 the books. Zbynek promised that he would do nothing against Wick- 
 lif s writings without the king's consent ; and for this reason put off the 
 execution of the sentence. But he was far from intending really to 
 give up the execution of the sentence, in spite of all the remonstrances 
 against such a proceeding, alleging in excuse of his conduct that the 
 king had not expressly forbidden him to burn the books. On the 16th 
 of July, 1410, having surrounded his palace with a watch, he actually 
 caused two hundred volumes, among which were not only the writings 
 of Wicklif, but also some of Militz and others, to be burned, without the 
 slightest regard to rights of private property, as was afterwards remem- 
 bered to his reproach. This step of the archbishop was the signal for 
 great disturbances and violent controversies in Prague. Even blood 
 was spilt. So great a movement in the minds of men could not be put 
 down with force. The attempt to put it down by an act of arbitrary 
 power, would have only led to still greater violence. The burning of the 
 books had no other effect than to expose the archbishop to contempt and 
 ridicule ; and it was a great shock to his authority. Ribald and satiri- 
 cal songs, of which he was made the subject, were openly sung in the 
 streets of Prague, to the purport, " the archbishop has yet to learn his 
 ABC; he has caused books to be burned, without knowing what was 
 
 ' Ne exinde confusio toti regno, domi- zel's account of the life of King Winces- 
 no regi et universitati inferatur. See Pel- laus I. in Urkundsubuch, No. 220, p. 130. 
 
262 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 in them ! " i King Wenceslaus himself, though no friend of the arch- 
 bishop, believed it necessary to put some check on these proceedings ; 
 and is said to have forbidden, on pain of death, these satirical songs on 
 the archbishop.2 Two contemporaries, belonging to the opposite par- 
 ties, are aizreed in statin;]: that bv this burninir of his books, tlie enthu- 
 siasm for Wicklif was increased rather than diminished. One was 
 IIuss's zealous opponent, the abbot Stejihen of Dola, Avho at the same 
 time was blind enough to trace the origin of all the troubles to the diso- 
 bedience of IIuss. This writer cites, from the lips of one of Wicklif's ad- 
 herents, the following words : " The archbishop has burnt many ftiraous 
 writings of Wicklif ; yet he has not been able to burn them all. For we 
 have still quite a number left ; and we are continually searching in 
 all cjuarters for others to add to this number, and to supply the place 
 of those lost. Let the archbishop again bid us deliver them up to liira, 
 and let him see whether we will obey him ! " ^ The second is IIuss 
 himself, who says : '' I call the burning of books a poor business. 
 Such burning never vet removed a single sin from the hearts of men 
 (if he who condemned could not prove anything), but has only de- 
 stroyed many truths, many beautiful and fine thoughts, and multiplied 
 among the people disturbances, enmities, suspicions, and murders." 4 
 "When now the news of the death of Alexander V, and of the accession 
 to the government of John XXIII, arrived in Prague, IIuss followed up 
 his earlier appeal, already mentioned, by another addressed to this new 
 pope. In this appellatory document he endeavored to point out what 
 •was arbitrary and unreasonable in the conduct of Zbynek, tliat he had 
 caused books to be burnt which contained no theological matter what- 
 ever, but which related simply to worldly sciences, quite contrary to 
 the example of holy men of old, as for example Moses and Daniel, 
 who appropriated to themselves the knowledge of unbelieving nations. 
 Paul cited verses from Grecian poets ; the chu)-ch had always sanc- 
 tioned the practice of studying the books of heretics for the purpose of 
 
 ' Pelzcl Gesch. Wenceslaus Thl. II, s. Christi odiosam niultiplicacioncm lenoci- 
 
 568. nantis cantici didicisset screnissimiis et 
 
 * The abbot of Dola describes the im- niajrtnficiis prniccps Homatioium et Bohe- 
 
 prc«sion produced l)y the burninq: of the miae rex Weiu-eslaus. divino c(b)ctus spi- 
 
 books. ill tlie words j)resently to be cited, ritu, volens tarn stolidam et pul)li(ain jrre- 
 
 but unjustly lays the blame of all not on verentiani devota et dcbita rceoinpensure 
 
 the caprice' and folly of the archbishop, reverentia, re<;io pul>li(.-ac vocis statuit de- 
 
 whom he desi<rnates as a man of God, l)ut creto, ut ncfpiaquam (iuis(iu:un ainplius 
 
 to the mischievous influence of Huss, eandem deinentiae cantilenam noii >()!mn 
 
 thou;_di the whole was a natural conse- sub facultatum fi>rcnsium. scd cr sub •■■.\\n- 
 
 quence of the affair, and such as by the talis sentcntiae poena audcat dccantai-e. 
 
 laws of human nature always take place Stephen of Dola in Antihussus, by Tetz, 
 
 under similar circumstances. The abbot IV. 2. p. 417 and 418. 
 
 of Dola says of the archbishop: Factus ' Tcz thcs. IV, 2, pai:. 380. 
 
 fuit ex inobedientia et reli.ellione illius * Malum dico coinliustioncm librorum, 
 
 Mair. Hus velut contemptil)ilis et paene quae combustio nullum peccatum de cord- 
 
 fabula in poi)ul(). ita ut picri(iue in^olcntes ibus houiinum (nisi condeinnatoros ]iroba- 
 
 vulirares ac ironicas de eoflcm viro dei verint) sustulir, scd vt-ritates multas et 
 
 '^.ontingerent et decanerent cantiones pub- setentias pulchras ct subtiles in scripto 
 
 lice per plateas contra justissimam ct zelo dc^^truxit. ct in pojtulo disturbia. invidias, 
 
 catholicae fidci commodam coinbustioncm difl'amationes. odia mnltiplicavit et homi- 
 
 librorum istius haereticae pravitatis. Cu- cidia. IIus pro dcfcnsione libri de trini- 
 
 jus cum frc(iuculationem ct irrevcrcntiae tate Joanu. Wiclef, opp. I, fol. 106. 
 
 , J 
 
APPEAL OF IIUSS TO JOHN XXTII. 263 
 
 refuting tliem ; and at the universitieg provided with papal privileges, 
 the writings of Aristotle and Averrhoes were studied, though they con- 
 tained much that Avas contrary to the truths of faith. The writings of 
 Origen were not burned, and yet heresies Avere to be found in them ; 
 and in the short space of time occupied by the commission, it was im- 
 possible that so many books could be so thoroughly read and examined 
 as to enable the members to pass judgment upon tliem. Against the 
 prohibition to preach in Bethlehem chajiel, he contends that Christ, 
 who left behind him the seed of his word as the provision for souls, did 
 not mean to have it bound. Christ himself preached everywhere, in 
 the streets, in the fields, and on the lake. For if he had not left be- 
 hind, for us, the seed of his word, we should have been even as Sodom 
 and Gomorrah. After his resurrection, he had transferred the office of 
 preaching to his disciples forever. With this commission of Christ, and 
 the ordinances of the fathers, this prohibition of Zbynek stood in direct 
 contradiction. And he cites the rule that, in things necessary to salva- 
 tion, one should obey God rather than man. Huss made this appeal in 
 conjunction with many other masters and preachers.^ The language 
 which he employs in it was little suited indeed to be understood or ap- 
 preciated by the monster John XXIII. and the court which he had 
 gathered. Huss, from this time onward, composed several writings, 
 which seem to have had their origin in public disputations held by him 
 m the university :2 and in these productions he expounded, more at 
 length, the reasons why he could not obey the archbishop in those ordi- 
 nances, and defended many doctrines and writings of Wicklif against the 
 condemnation that had been passed on them. These papers evince the 
 christian temper of his mind at that time ; they show how firmly re- 
 solved he Avas already to suffer the loss of all things for the cause of 
 Christ, and that even then martyrdom was not far absent from hi3 
 thoughts ; and they also show Avith Avhat enthusiastic confidence, in- 
 spired by a christian sense of the force of truth, he looked forward to 
 the ultimate triumph of the truth he defended. We may mention here 
 his tract De trinitate, Avhich he Avrote in the year 1410. He begins the 
 public academical act, from Avhich that paper proceeded, by explaining, 
 that it had never entered into his mind to persist in obstinately main- 
 taining anything Avhich Avas contrary to the Holy Scriptures, or in any 
 way erroneous ; but if he asserted anything of this sort, from ignorance 
 or inadvertency, he Avould cheerfully and humbly retract it. And if any 
 person of the church, Avhoever he might be, would teach him better by 
 quotation from Scripture, or rational argument, he Avas perfectly ready 
 to concur Avith him. " For — he says — from the earliest period of my 
 studies until now, have I laid it doAvn as a rule, that whenever I heard 
 a more correct opinion on any subject whatever advanced, I Avould, Avith 
 joy and humility, give up my earlier opinion ; being Avell aAvare that 
 what we knoAV is vastly less than what Ave do not know." 3 In a later 
 
 ' Apellatio Joann. Hus ab Archiepis- ascendo. 0pp. I, fol. 105. 
 
 copo ad sedem apostolicam, opp. I, fol. 89. •* Nam a primo studii mei tempore hoc 
 
 ■■' As we infer from the words with which mihi statui pro reguUi, ut quotiescunquo 
 
 his tract De triuitate begins : Cathedram saniorem setentiam in quacunque materia 
 
264 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 paperonT}thes,of the year 1412, be points out three aifferent sources 
 oftlie knowledge of that truth ^vhich is always to be held last — Holy 
 Scripture, reason, and of the senses experience.' Not as though Huss 
 meant to place these truths on a level, as to their sub.^t a nee and matter; 
 but as truthfulness, and steadfastness in maintaining that which had been 
 made out as true, belonged among the fundamental traits of his charac- 
 ter, so he was resolved never to give up, at any price, a truth which he 
 had gained, whatever it might be, or from whatever source it might 
 have come. We see how, in the soul of lluss, it was a principle already 
 formed and firmly established, to derive all the truths of faith directly 
 from iScripture, and to acknowledge nothing to be such truth which did 
 not api>ear to rest on that foundation. As Christ was the great centre 
 of his faith and of his life, so he had determined to adhere only to his 
 word as the rule of faith and life. But with this he could still jom a 
 firm adherence to the existing doctrines of the church, being not as yet 
 conscious of anv contradiction between them and the sacred Scriptures ; 
 because his whole theological development had sprung out of the prac- 
 tical element. Jis he had not the remotest idea of deserting the actual 
 church and forming a new one, so he could still seek to unite the two 
 things together ; Though he was already firmly resolved to sacrifice 
 everything to the truth as clearly gathered from the Scriptures, and to 
 reject all that stood in conflict with it, or which he clearly made out to 
 be such. He still clung to church tradition ; but it appeared to him 
 only as the historical evolution of the truth contained, as to its essence, 
 in the sacred Scriptures, an evolution of the germs therein contained, 
 as he expresses it in his tract De decimis,^ mentioned just above, where 
 he says : " Law, as determined by the prelates, is styled canonical law ; 
 and its purpose is to restrain, within due limits, whatever stands in con- 
 flict with the holy laws of the church. It may be compared with the 
 evangelical law, the latter being the articles of fiiith which have been 
 deter'iuined by the holy synods. As the man remains the same, though 
 he may appear in a different dress, and under different, changeable and 
 accidental characters, so it is in the same law or the same evangelical 
 truth which is contained impUc'dlij, or unfolded in the gospel, and is after- 
 'wards expounded by the church in another but not contradictory man- 
 ner." 3 He declares, in reference to the forty-five propositions of Wick- 
 lif, " Because it tends to prejudice too much the interests of salvation, 
 to 'condemn any truth without examination,"* as our Lord says, Judge 
 
 percincrcm, a priori scntentia gaudcntcr ad rebelles sacris rcgulis coerccndum. Et 
 
 et hmniliter dedinarcm, siit-ns, quoniam ])Otest t-tiam intclli<;i, ut cominiinican.s juri 
 
 ilia q\iac sciinus, sunt ntininia illorum, cvan-:elito, ut sunt articuli fi.k-i, in Sanctis 
 
 quae i'Mioramus. Ilus dc trinitatc, oj)!). I, synodis sive conciliis cxplanati. Sicut 
 
 £yl j()3 eniin idem est homo in vestiMus ant acci- 
 
 • Videlicet in voritate in srriptura sacra dentilius notitiam induccntil)us varians, 
 
 cxplicita, in vcritate ah infallil'ili ratione sic eadcm est lex vel Veritas evangelica in 
 
 eiahorata et in veritate experimentaliter a evanKclio implicita vel detecta, et per ec- 
 
 scnsu co>Miita. llus dc decimis, opp. I, fol. doiam postnuxlum aliter, scd non con- 
 
 J25 2. " traric cx|)lanata. 
 
 =»' Ilus opp. I fol. 128, 2. ■* In the edition layinjj before us wo 
 
 » Jus canonicum vocatur jus a praclato find, it is true, exanime condemnare ven- 
 
 vel praelatis institutum et promulgatum tatcm ; but we tliink we may take it for 
 
DEFEXS. QUOR. ART. J. WICKLIF BY UUS3. 265 
 
 not, that ye be not jadgefl, the university of Pra;;ne demands, so far as 
 it does not concur in the condemnation of those forty-five articles, the 
 proof, from the appointed doctors, of the reasonableness of that con- 
 demnation, and that they should show wherein each of tbose articles is 
 false, by the authority of Scripture, or by ar<^nments of ii»faHi!)le reason." 
 In reference to the prohibition directed against preaching; in Beth- 
 lehem chapel, he says: " Where is there any authority of Holy Writ, 
 or where are there any rational grounds for forbidding preaching in so 
 public a place, fitted up for that very purpose, in the midst of the 
 great city of Prague ? Nothing else can be at the bottom of this, but 
 the jealousy of Antichrist. i He exhibits Pope Alexander V. in con- 
 trast with the apostles. " For — says he — when that pope heard at 
 his court that Jiohemia received the word of God, he did not send 
 Peter and John to pray for the Bohemians, and to lay their hands on 
 them, that in hearing the word of God they might receive the Holy 
 Ghost ; but he sent back some ill-disposed persons belonging to Bohe- 
 mia, and commanded, in his bull, that the word of God should not be 
 preached in private chapels." ^ liuss opposes to the arbitrary self-will of 
 a man, which would hinder him from preaching, his own divine call, lie 
 says : "He who lives conformably to the law of Christ, and animated 
 by a disposition of sincere love, has singly in view the glory of God, 
 and his own and his neighbor's salvation, and preaches not lies, not 
 ribaldry, not fables, but the law of Christ and the doctrines of the holy 
 fathers' of the church, he who so preaches when times of distress 
 come, when a pope or a bishop is wanting, or he who takes his stand 
 in opposition to heretics or false teachers, such a person never arro- 
 gates to himself the call to preach without authority ; and it is not to 
 be doubted, that the man in such case is sent of God." The inter- 
 nal divine call, Huss asserts, which springs from the work of the Holy 
 Spirit on the soul, is of more authority than any outward call proceed- 
 in*'' from men ; and a person may be constrained by this internal call 
 from God to stand forth even in opposition to the ordinances of man. 
 Those ecclesiastical laws had been given only for the purpose of re- 
 straining the bad. Not for a righteous man is the law made, but for 
 sinners." Where the spirit of God is, there is liberty .3 Now we may 
 
 granted that this, as many other passages had not been forbidden him to preach, but 
 
 in this edition of the works of Huss, is in- to found a school in this phice; which, 
 
 correct, and that the text shouki read, however, in the sense of Huss was nothin<^ 
 
 sine examine. Defens. quor. art. J. Wic- else than to found here a genuin"? christian 
 
 lef, opp. I, fol. 111. church ; tliougli to this abbo,t it would ap- 
 
 > De trinit., opp. I. fol. 106, 2. The ab- pear only as a " School of 8atan.'^ So he 
 
 bot of Dola quotes as a common saying expresses himself: Non ut verbum Christi 
 
 amontc the party of Huss, that the word occultctur, scd ut Qcci\sio. conventiculi et 
 
 of God cannot be bound. His opinion on satanicae seholae illii,is impii Wicletf hae- 
 
 the contrary was, that Huss had not been retici de medio toUeretur, Antihussus, Fez 
 
 forbidden to preach at all, but only, for thos. IV, 2, pag. 373,., 
 
 special reasons, to preach in tliis ])articu- * i^esponsio ad scnptum octo doctor- 
 
 lar chapel; and here the duty of obedience um, opp. I, fol. 298, 1. _ 
 
 to his superiors ought to have been felt -^ Justo enim lex nan est posita, scd uln 
 
 by him as of paramount obligation. The spiritus dei, ibi libertas, et si spn-itu dei 
 
 Bethlehem Chapel is here denominated dudmini, non estis sub lege. Def. articul, 
 
 the Wicletistarum insidiosa spelunca. It quor. J. Wicleff, opp. I, fol. U5. 
 
 VOL. V. 23 
 
26^ HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRIXE. 
 
 easily conceive how revolting sucb language of christian freedom of 
 spirit must have appeared to those who knew of nothing liigher than 
 the stiff ordinances of the church ; how thev must Iiave looked upon it 
 as tending to the overthrow of all ecclesiastical order. ]}ut the ob- 
 jection now brought up, was that such an internal divine call was 
 hidden from all but the subject of it. Lvery man could affirm this of 
 himself: every heretic, every fanatic, might stand u|) under that 
 pretence. Some outward sign of such an internal divine call was 
 requisite therefore; either an express testimonv of Holy Scrijjture, or 
 an evident miracle. To this IIuss re})lied : and the reader will be 
 struck with the coincidence of the views he exfiresses with those of 
 Matthew of Janow, — "Antichrist was to have the power of deceiving 
 by wonders. In the last times, miracles are to be retrenched from 
 the church. She is to go about only in the form of a servant ; she is 
 to be tried by patience. The lying wonders of the servants of Anti- 
 christ are to serve for the trial of faith. By its own intrinsic power, 
 faith shall preserve itself in the elect, superior to all arts of deception. 
 This is the substance of that which Huss sets forth and illustrates by 
 copious extracts from the sayings of the older church teachers. " Pro- 
 phecy — he says — is wrapt in obscurity ; the gift of healing removed ; 
 the power of long-protracted fasting diminished; the word of doctrine 
 silent ; miracles are withheld. Not that divine providence utterly 
 suspends ^ these things ; but they are not to be seen openly and in 
 great variety, as in earlier times. All this, however, is so ordered by 
 a wonderful arrangement of divine providence, that God's mercy and 
 justice may be revealed precisely in this way ; for while the church 
 of Christ must, after the withdrawal of her miraculous gifts, appear in 
 greater lowliness, and the righteous who venerate her on account of 
 the hope of heavenly good, not on account of visible signs, fail of their 
 reward in this earthly life, there will, on the other hand, be a more 
 speedy manifestation of the temper of the wicked who, disdaining to 
 follow after the invisible things which the church promises, cling fast 
 to visible siirns." i 
 
 In this mode of contemplating the condition of the church in the 
 last times, we recognize an adherent of the doctrine of absolute pre- 
 destination ; though the truth contained in these same views might 
 also be held independent of this doctrine. This servant-form of the 
 true church, in which the power of the invisible godlike is all that 
 attracts, as contrasted with the abundance of lying wonders in the 
 worldly church of Antichrist, appearing in visible glory, serves as a 
 
 ' Nam proohetia absconditur, curation- subtractis miraculorum virtutibus sancta 
 um gratia anfertiir, prolixioris abstincnitae ecclesia veliit abjectior apparct ct l)ono- 
 virtus immiimitur, doctrinae verba conti- rum pracmium <iiiiescit, (pii ilbim propter 
 cesount. miraculorum prodij^'ia tollcntur. spL-m eoelestiuni, non propter praesentia 
 Quae fpiidem nequacpiam supema disposi- sijjna venerantur. ct malorum meus eoiitra 
 lio fiinditus subtrabit, sed nou haee, sieut ilia citius ostenditur. qui sequi <puie pro- 
 prioril)us temj)oribus aperte ac multipliei- mittit invi>ibilia ne^^li;;ui)t, dum si;j:nis vi- 
 ler ostendit, quod tamen mira dispensa- sibilibus eoutinentur. Defensio articul. 
 tione a;;itur, ut una ex re diviua sinud et quor. J. Wicleft', opp. I, fol. 115, 2. 
 pietas et justitia compleatur, duin enim 
 
DEFENSIO ART. QUOR. J. WICKLIF BY JIUSS. 267 
 
 means of separatin.;^ the elect from the reprobate. The elect must 
 pass through this trial in order to brin;]; out their genuine character ; 
 the reprobate must be deceived according to the just judgment of 
 God. He proceeds to infer, therefore, from what had been said, that 
 in these times it is rather the servants of Antichrist, than the servants 
 of Christ, who will make themselves known by wonders. lie says : 
 '' It is a greater miracle to confess the truth and practise righteous- 
 ness, than to perform marvellous works to the outward senses." And 
 he then adds : The priest or deacon who loves his enemies, despises 
 riches, esteems as nothing the glory of this world, avoids entangling 
 himself in worldly business, and patiently endures terrible threaten- 
 ings, even persecutions for the gospel's sake, such a priest or deacon 
 performs miracles, and has the witness within him that he is a genuine 
 disciple of Christ." He appeals to various fine remarks of Augustin, 
 Gregory, and Chrysostom, on miracles, those witnesses to the genuine 
 ' Christian view of the miracle, which, in spite of all errors, runs tlirou'>-h 
 the whole history of the church, and also to the words of Christ, Matt. 
 5: 16. JohniO: 38. Matt. 7: 22., and then concludes: "It is 
 evident that every priest or deacon, who confesses the truth and 
 practises righteousness, has a virtual testimony in this very thing, that 
 he is sent of God, and that he needs not prove this divine mission by 
 miracles, nor by an express passage of Holy Writ, relating personally 
 to himself as one sent of God to preach the gospel." i 
 
 Even now Huss gives utterance to the resolution, which he observed 
 faithfully to the end. " In order that I may not make myself guilty, 
 then, by my silence, forsaking the truth for a piece of bread, or through 
 fear of man, I avow it to be my purpose to defend the truth which 
 God has enabled me to know, and especially the truth of the Holy 
 Scriptures, even to death ; since I know that the truth stands, and is 
 forever mighty, and abides eternally ; and with her there is no respect 
 of persons.2 And, if the fear of death should terrify me, still I hope 
 in my God and in the assistance of the Holy Spirit, that the Lord 
 himself will give me firmness. And if I have found favor in his sldit, 
 he will crown me with martyrdom.^ But, what more glorious triumph 
 is there than this ? Inciting his faithful to this victory our Lord 
 says : Fear not them that kill the body, (Matt. 10 : 28)." We 
 may here add the words uttered by Huss in his tract on Tythes : 
 " As it is necessary for men gifted with reason to hear, to speak, and 
 
 * Ex ]iis patet. quod qiiilibet diaconus manum deserens veritatem, volo verita- 
 
 vel sacerdos confitens verirarom et faeiens tem, qiiam mihi deus cognoscere conces- 
 
 justitiam habet testimonium efficax, quod serit, et praesertim scripturae divinae us- 
 
 ipse est missus a deo, et quod non opor- que ad mortem defendere, sciens. quia 
 
 tet ipsiim probare illam missionem per Veritas mauct et invaleseit in aeternum et 
 
 operationem miraculi, propter operation- obtinet in saecula saeculorum, apud quara 
 
 em justitiae, nee per seripturam, quae ex- non est aecipere personas neque ditferen- 
 
 presse ipsum nomine exprimeret, quod ad tias. De trin., opp. I, 106. 
 evangelisandum a domino foret missus. ^ Et si timor mortis terrere voluerit, 
 
 Ibid. fol. 116, 2. spero dedeo meo et spiritus saneti auxilio, 
 
 2 jife ergo istis speciebus consensus per- quod ipse dominus dabit constantiam. Et 
 
 cuterer et specialiter consensu non repre- si gratiara invenero in oculis suis, martyr- 
 
 hensionis, mutescens culpaliiliter. propter io coronabit. Ibid, 
 bucceilam paais, aut propter timorem ha- 
 
238 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 to love the truth, and to guard carefully against everything that might 
 thwart it ; as the truth itself triumphs over everything and is mighty 
 forever, (where he refers to the words of Christ : Let your communi- 
 cation be Yea, yea ; nay, nay) ; who, but a fool, would venture to 
 condemn or to affirm any article, especially in \vhat pertains to faith 
 and manners, until he has informed himself about the truth of it ? " i 
 If some writers, both in ancient ^ and in modern times, have been 
 disposed to find in IIuss a proud or a fanatical striving after martyr- 
 dom, we cannot in tliis agree with them at all. It was simply the 
 presentiment of death, which could not, in such a time, fail to fill the 
 mind of a witness for the truth, coming out in the face of the world : 
 for that truth to which he had devoted his entire life as a sacrifice. 
 The conduct of IIuss down to the hour of his martyrdom will show U3 
 nothing but the genuine Christian martyr, w';*o with enthusiasm, yet 
 ■with cool self-posses.>ion and resignation to the divine will, seeks not 
 but accepts when offered the martyr's crown in godly joy from the 
 hand of the giver. It was laid as a serious charge against Huss, as 
 ■we have seen, that he publicly discussed contested articles of faith. 
 In reference to this, he says : " How often did Christ dispute with 
 companies of the Jews and priests ; how often, according to the Acts 
 of the Apostles, did his disciples, how often have the holy teachers of 
 the church, and the scholastic doctors, disputed on the matters of 
 faith." 3 
 
 The principles of WickUf which Huss defended, contained much that 
 "would make him appear to the advocates of the old hierarchical sys- 
 tem a very dangerous adversary, a destructionist ; and Huss himself, 
 in defending these principles, -was led to say many things which 
 doubtless were liable to misapprehension. We have already re- 
 marked that, with Wicklif, he looked upon it as the destination of the 
 clergy to copy, in all tilings, the example of Christ, who took upon him 
 the form of a servant, and to resemble him therefore in poverty. What- 
 ever the clergy obtained for their support, should be regarded simply as 
 gift of free love. The spontaneous affection of those for whose spiritual 
 benefit they labored, should afford them what was necessary for the 
 bodv.3 But they should require only what was absolutely needful for 
 their support, and nothing which ministered to superfiuity.^ From the 
 su[>erfluous abundance of temporal goods, he derived the corruption of 
 the wondly clergy .5 He was forced to complain that, especially in Bohe- 
 mia, the fourth part of all the landed estates were in the hands of the 
 clergy. 5 Accordinglj', with Wicklif, he finds the princes to be in the 
 
 ' De (Icfimis. opp. I, fol. 125, 2. confirmares te scqiicntium, traderes tc po- 
 
 ' 1 he a!il)Ot of J)uhi, in the year 1411, tins Hammis ultricilms concrcmanduin. 
 
 already tiads that IIuss will die at the Antihussus, Pcz thes. IV, 2, pag. 383. 
 
 stake rather than recanf, hut from his ^ l)e trinitate, opp I, fol. 107, 2. 
 
 false (onc'-ption of humility and ol)edii'nec, * Compare liis vact De decimis, of tho 
 
 taisen from tlie position of Roman Cath- year 1412. 
 
 olicism, he sees in this only a want of hu- * Cum plus quam quarta pars regni sit 
 
 militv, and spiritual pride. So he says: devoluta ad manum niortnam. De abla- 
 
 Ani' <|uam humiliatus revocans revoranda tione bonorum, vol. I, 1412, opp. I, foL 
 
 de tuae sublimitatis desecnderes pestilenti 122, 2. 
 
 cathedra, at vel sic tuorum lapidea corda 
 
HUSS ON RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 269 
 
 ri^-ht ; and looks upon it as a work of christian charity in them to de- 
 prive the clergy of that superfluity of earthly goods which they abused, 
 and which was the means of their corruption. ^ Thus should the clergy 
 be brought back to poverty and to the holy life of the primitive apos- 
 tolical church. This was an error, indeed, in the case of IIuss as well as 
 of Wicklif ; an error that was followed by mischievous consequences, and 
 which arose from their not paying sufficient regard to the course things 
 had actually taken in history, and from their supposing that a glorious 
 condition of the church connected with an altogether different stage of 
 progress, was to be thus suddenly restored from without. In expressing 
 these views, IIuss attached them to a proposition already laid down by 
 the ancient teachers of the church, which, theoretically considered, con- 
 tained in it a sublime truth, leading the mind back to Christ himself 
 and the apostles ; but which, empirically apprehended and applied to 
 practice, might lead to the overthrow of all social order ; the proposi- 
 tion, namely, that all rightful holding of property, in the sight of God, 
 was conditioned on the subjective worth of the owner ; that ownership 
 could be predicated only of the righteous ; in support of which it was 
 already customary among the ancients to quote Prov. 17: 6, according 
 to the Septuagint version and the Vulgate. Now when this proposition 
 was employed in justification of the act of depriving the unworthy 
 of their property, the consequences, no doubt, would be very bad. 
 Huss cites, in favor of it, 1 Cor. 3 : 21. ^ To the same category be- 
 longs, also, his defence of Wicklif s proposition that No man is lord 
 over any possession, no man can be king, or bishop, if he is in mortal 
 sin. Huss distinguished three kinds of property, that grounded in na- 
 ture, that grounded in civil law, and that proceeding from grace and 
 justice. It never entered his thoughts to make sovereignty and su- 
 preme authority dependant on the personal worth of the incumbent, or 
 to approve of rebellion against authority not so founded. The very dis- 
 tinction just set forth stood opposed to any such mode of apprehending 
 and applying the proposition. He affirms what, rightly understood, 
 could not be denied, that mortal sin infected not the whole life only, 
 but as well every single action of the man in detail ; that everything 
 depended on the governing disposition, which gave to everything its 
 moral character. But nothing could be gained by this ; nothing but 
 mischief could ensue when a proposition, correct in itself, was so para- 
 doxically expressed, and applied to questions of right, a province of life 
 where it ought never to be applied. Had it not been for the barren, 
 subtle method of scholasticism in which the fifteenth century was still 
 entangled to a far greater degree than the flourishing period of scholas- 
 ticism had been in the thirteenth century, Huss w^ould not have ex- 
 pended so much labor in demonstrating a point so unfruitful in its prac- 
 tical application and so hable to be misapprehended. But IIuss defends 
 
 » L. c. fol. 120, 2 : Kectificatio facillima ' Temporales autem Jomini procedentes 
 
 cleri ad vitara Christi et apostolorum et secundum caritatis rcgulam juste possi- 
 
 pertinentior laicis, ne ipsi clerici vivant dent ilia temporalia, cum justorum sunt 
 
 Christo contrarie, videtur esse eleemosy- omnia. Do ablat. bon., opp. I, fol. 119, 2. 
 narum subtractio et collatarum ablatio. 
 
 23* 
 
270 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 himself against the reproach, that hy hi.^ mode of representing office 
 as being conditioned on the personal worth of the holder, he destroyed 
 its objective efficiency. He says, " we concede that a bad pope, bishop, 
 or priest, is an unworthy minister of those sacraments by which God 
 baptizes and consecrates, or in other ways operates for the advance- 
 ment of his church. But in the same way he ordains much that is 
 good through the instrumentality of the devil as his minister, being 
 very mighty, glorious, and praiseworthy in this, that he effects such 
 glorious ends by so reprobate a minister. But the minister effiicts it to 
 his own condemnation." ^ 
 
 We have already remarked that the adversaries of IIuss, who would 
 have been very glad to represent him as an opponent of the doctrine 
 of transubstantiation, since this would have served beyond anything else 
 to fix upon him the charge of heresy, availed themselves for this pur- 
 pose (perverting his words) of that spiritual apprehension of this sacra- 
 ment in its significance for the internal christian life, wliich was made 
 specially prominent by Huss in his preaching. As IIuss ever laid 
 great stress on the expression that Christ is himself the bread of the 
 soul, the provision for eternal life, his enemies seized on such expres- 
 sions to create a suspicion that he did not really believe in the flesh and 
 blood of Christ in the Lord's supper, as that into which the bread and 
 wine had been transformed. It was the "whispering about of such a 
 suspicion which seems to have led Huss to compose his tract Be Corpore 
 Christi. In this treatise also, we see how he gives prominence only to 
 the practical side of religion ; how very far he is from wishing to con- 
 tend against the doctrine of transubstantiation. He portrays, in this 
 tract, first the character of the gross Jews (grossi Judnei), who would 
 not acknowledge Christ to be the bread of the soul, who said the body of 
 Christ was broken, comminuted with the teeth, seen with the bodily eyes, 
 and touched with the hands. We recognize here the same class of 
 people that appeared first against Berenger, who, for the purpose of 
 cutting off all possibility of a spiritual apprehension of the mystery, se- 
 lected the most carefully-sought crass style of expression respecting the 
 body of Christ in the supper, and who were ready to detect, in every 
 more spiritual mode of expression, a denial of transubstantiation. He 
 says of these people that in grossness of apprehension they were to bo 
 compared with those Jews who murmured against Christ in the syna- 
 gogue of Capernaum (John vi). He joins those opponents of the crass 
 phraseology respecting the body of Christ produced by the consecra- 
 tion, Hugo de St. Victor, Ilildebert of Mans, and even Innocent III, 
 in saying that " Christ is manducated sjiiritually. "He abides in his di- 
 vinity and his body wholly in heaven, and he abides in his divinity and 
 his humanity wholly within the heart, so long as the sacrament is 
 with thee. But when thou art not receiving the sacrament, and art 
 without mortal sin, although he does not sacramentally and in his hu- 
 manity abide in thee, he still, in his divinity and through grace, dwells 
 in thy heart." He thinks it of importance to note, distinctly, that what 
 
 * Responsio ad scripta Palctz, opp. I, fol. 256. 
 
IIUSS ox THE DOCTIIINE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 271 
 
 the senses perceive is one tliinii;, and what tlie eye of faith discerns, 
 quite another, a distinction which could be made without affectin;^ the 
 doctrine of transubstantiation. 
 
 Meantime the cause of IIuss assumed a much darker aspect in the 
 Koman court. The report of Archbisliop Zbynek relative to the 
 Bohemian disturbances met with a far more cordial reception than the 
 appeal of IIuss, which was scarcely noticed. The pope committed the 
 matter for investigation into the hands of Cardinal Otto of Colonna, 
 the same who was afterwards chosen pope by the council of Constance. 
 This cardinal confirmed the sentence passed by Arclibishop Zbynek, 
 and cited Huss to appear at Bologna, where the pope was then resid- 
 ing. This mode of proceeding aroused the indignation of the impor- 
 tant partv of IIuss in Bohemia. Huss and his friends could with 
 justice affirm that, owing to the great number of his enemies in Ger- 
 many it would not be safe for him to undertake such a journey ; that 
 it would be sacrificing his life for nothing. In truth, the worst and 
 nothing but the worst, was to be expected, even should IIuss succeed 
 in getting to the Roman court, where there were so many to whom 
 he had made himself odious by attacking the corruptions that prevail- 
 ed at that court. 1 Queen Sophia used all her interest in behalf of 
 her father confessor. Wenceslaus, who looked upon Archbishop Zby- 
 nek as the author of all the disturbances, the man who had brought 
 his kingdom under suspicion, wrote in favor of Huss to the pope in 
 Bologna and to the college of Cardinals. He begged the pope to put 
 a stop to the whole process, to impose silence on the enemies of IIuss, 
 to suppress the dispute concerning the books of Wicklif ; since it was 
 evident, that in his kingdom no man had fallen into error or heresy by 
 occasion of those writings. " It is our will too — he wrote — that 
 Bethlehem Chapel, which, for the glory of God and the saving good 
 of the people, we have endowed with franchises for the preaching of 
 the gospel, should stand, and should be confirmed in its privileges ; so 
 that its patrons may not be deprived of their rights of patronage, and 
 that Master Huss (whom he styles the loyal, devout, and beloved) 
 may be established over this chapel and preach the word of God in 
 peace." He demanded of the pope, moreover, that the personal cita- 
 tion of Huss should be revoked ; and if any one had anything to object 
 to him, that he should present his objections there within the realm 
 and before the university of Prague, or some other competent tribu- 
 nal.2 Kmg Wenzel sent, in company with this letter to the pope, 
 
 * The abbot of Dola, in his dialogue him as his judge, whose sins he has reek- 
 written in the year 1414, represents the lessly attacked, he manifestly gives him- 
 " Goose''' that is, Huss, his name signifying self up to death." To this his antagonist 
 this in the Bohemian language, as saying, replied : '' Huss, placing his contidence in 
 '• I have many reasons for not obeying the God, had nothing to fear, and, after the 
 citation to Rome. It was my intention, example of Christ, ouglit to have appeared 
 at first, to appear there; but my counsel even before an unjust judge. Stepli. Dol. 
 and the counsel of the other party wrote dialogus volatilis, Fez IV, 2, pag. 464 et 
 me, that I should not come, because it 465 auca et passer. 
 
 would be sacriticiug my life to no purpose. '^ The letter, according to a manuscript 
 I refused, then, because I did not wish to in the Imperial li'brary at Vienna, in Pa- 
 neglect the people in the word of God, nor lacky III, 1, p. 258, and the letter to the 
 to expose my life when nothing was to be cardinals, in Felzel, Urkundenbuch Nr. 
 gained by it ; for when a man stands before 221. 
 
272 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 Doctor Nass, and Master John Cardinalis of Relnstein, a man often 
 employed in embassies, a friend of Huss, and one Avho afterwards took 
 an important part in the Hussite movements ; and they were to re- 
 quest the pope to send a legate to Bohemia at the king's expense. 
 He also wrote to Cardinal Colonna ; and requested him to come to 
 Prague himself, and inform himself of the actual state of things- by 
 personal observation. He directed that the pope should be informed 
 by Doctor Nass, to whom the pope was a personal friend, that nothing 
 but his respect for the pope prevented him from bringing the author 
 of all these disturbances in his kingdom to condign punishment. Huss 
 at the same time sent with these persons three procurators to Rome, 
 as his representatives and advocates in the carrying on of the process, 
 — his friend, Master Jesenic, a jurist, and two doctors of theology. 
 Cardinal Colonna had already, in February, 1411, pronounced sen- 
 tence of excommunication in contumaciam against Huss, for not obey- 
 ing the citation. Still, however, the pope was moved by the interces- 
 sion of the king to take the cause out of the hands of Colonna, and to 
 appoint a new commission ; among the members of which we may 
 mention Cardinal Francisco a Zabarellis, archbishop of Florence, as 
 one who on account of his disposition to favor reform stood better 
 affected towards Huss than many others. Meanwhile Archbishop 
 Zbynek had made every exertion through his delegates at Bologna to 
 prevent the course already taken against Huss, and his citation from 
 being revoked. He is said to have been most lavish in his presents, 
 sending horses, vases, and costly rings, to the pope, and other gifts of 
 the same kind to the cardinals. i But, through some unknown in- 
 fluence, the cause was afterwards transferred to Cardinal Brancas 
 alone, who, in spite of all the remonstrances made by the procurators 
 of Huss, ke[)t the whole affair in suspense for a year and a half. In 
 asmuch, therefore, as the excommunication of Huss had not been 
 revoked, the archbishop regarded it as valid, and had it published in 
 all the churches except two, whose rectors declined to read it. As 
 regards the procurators of Huss, since they persisted in demanding 
 that his cause should undergo a new investigation, some of them were 
 thrown into prison, the others returned back to Prague when they saw 
 that nothing was to be done. At length. Cardinal Brancas "brought 
 up the [)rocess against Huss. The former sentence was confirmed 
 with additional seventy. The cardinal issued a public declaration, 
 styling Huss a heresiarch, and laying the city where he resided 
 under interdict.2 Archbishop Zbynek carried this measure into effect, 
 and the interdict was imposed on Prague. But Huss and his friends 
 did not consider themselves bound by these arbitrary sentences, passed 
 without giving both parties a hearing. King Wenzel, whose remon- 
 strances addressed to the archbishop had had so little effect, warmly 
 espoused the side of Huss. The clergy who were inclined to observe 
 
 * Chronic, univcrs. Prag. Ms. in Palacky ' Sec the report given hy Huss himself, 
 
 HI, 1, S. 264, and compare what Master wliich may serve as the autliority tor tlie 
 
 Jenseric says on the matter of the bribes facts rehited iu the foregoing pages. 0pp. 
 
 in his protest. lius opp. I, fol. 332. I, fol. 86 sq. 
 
COMPROMISE IN THE YEAR 1411. 273 
 
 the interdict, had to endure violent persecutions ; their goods were 
 confiscated ; many of them fled the country. Thus the contest be- 
 tween the clergy and the secular pov^er in Bohemia, seemed to have 
 reached its acme ; when the whole affair took another turn, and a hope 
 began to be cherished that the present commotions would yet be hush- 
 ed to rest. Zbynek was forced to perceive that he was too weak to 
 carry through his purpose in opposition to the king and the party of 
 lluss. Reflecting that the schism in the church still continued to 
 subsist, looking at the feebleness of Pope John, who made liimself 
 every day more odious by his abominable life, and his disg':-icefiil 
 administration, Zbynek could not hope for assistance from the Koman 
 court; and, besides, Pope John was too deeply involved in other 
 affliirs lying nearer his heart, to be able to bestow any particular at- 
 tention on the disturbances in Bohemia. The archbishop was forced, 
 therefore, to the conviction, that, if he pushed matters to the extreme, 
 he would only run the risk of losing all his authority in Bohemia ; a 
 result which would be inevitable, if sharper spiritual measures were 
 continually resorted to, while yet every one of them was trifled with. 
 Hence he was the rather inclined, for the sake of saving his authority, 
 finally to give way to the efforts of the king and of the university for 
 the restoration of peace, and to offer his hand for reconciliation. 
 
 In the beginning of July, 1411, a committee was appointed, con- 
 sisting of ten, — princes, notables of the secular and spiritual orders, 
 — persons who had taken no part in the preceding controversies, to 
 devise the best means for establishing peace in Bohemia. Wenzel, 
 Archbishop Zbynek, and both parties pledged themselves to submit to 
 the decision of this committee.' They settled upon the following terms 
 of agreement : King Wenceslaus and the archbishop should both write 
 to the pope, and the latter report to him, that no heresies existed in 
 Bohemia ; a new inquiry, however, should be made into this^ matter, 
 and, if anything of a heretical character might still be found, it should 
 be condignly punished. Zbynek should obtain the pope's consent, 
 that if any person belonging to the Bohemian realm, of the secular or 
 spiritual order, lay under the ban, this should be removed by tue 
 pope ; both parties should recal their procurators from Rome, and be 
 satisfied with the decision of the king ; the archbishop should remove 
 the ban and interdict ; and, on the other hand, the king should restore 
 the salaries which had been withholden from the clergy, and release 
 such as were under arrest. Zbynek actually drew up such a letter to 
 the pope, reporting that no heresies were propagated in Bohemia, and 
 requesting him to remove the excommunication which had been pro- 
 nounced on Huss, and to revoke the citation which had been served 
 on him.2 In connection with this compact, Huss laid before the Uni- 
 versity of Prague, in official form, near the beginning of January, in 
 this year, 1411, a confession of faith designed to vmdicate himself 
 
 » See the report of Penzel, with the doc- ^ See the letter in the Works of Huss, I, 
 uments in the historical work above cited, fol. 87, 2. 
 and the narrative by Huss quoted on the 
 preceding page. 
 
274 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 against those aspersions wlilch had been cast upon his orthodoxy, which 
 Confession was to be transmitted to Rome, lluss declares in this paper, 
 that, *' to show due obedience to the church of Jesus Christ and to its 
 supreme head, I am ready to give to every man an account of the 
 faith that is in me, and confess with my whole heart that Jesus Christ 
 is true God and true man, that his whole law is of such stable truth, 
 that not one jot or tittle thereof can fail ; next, that his church is so 
 firmly established on the firm rock, that the gates of hell can never 
 prevail against it; and I am ready, trusting on my Lord Jesus Christ, 
 to endure the punishment of a terrible death, sooner than consciously 
 to say anything which would be contrary to the will of Christ and of 
 liis church." And so he testified that he had been falsely accused 
 before the apostolical see by his enemies. Among these false accusa- 
 tions, he cites the following : that he had taught the people that the 
 substance of the bread and wine still remained after the consecration ; 
 that, at the elevation of the host, Christ's body was present, but not 
 when it was set down again ; that a priest in mortal sin could not 
 consecrate ; i that the lords should deprive the clergy of their temporal 
 goods ; that tythes ought not to be paid ; 2 that indulgences were no- 
 thing ; 3 that he had advised to the employment of the secular sword 
 against the clergy ; that he had taught some heresy or other, or drawn 
 the people aside from the right faith ; that he had driven the Germans 
 from the University of Prague, etc.4 
 
 We may observe it as a thing of no rare occurrence in great epochs 
 of the history of the world, where one mode of thinking and feeling 
 has been brought into direct conflict with its opposite, and by means 
 of such conflict the way is preparing for new and important develop- 
 ments, that when these antagonisms have arrived at their utmost ten- 
 sion, a way of compromise or adjustment from some foreign quarter 
 seems to be ready prepared for the occasion. A superficial view of 
 history might lead one to suppose, that now, if some other disturbing 
 cause had not interfered to prevent the adoption of this compromise, 
 and if but this or that means had been added by a cunning pohcy, the 
 whole course of events would have taken an altogether different direc- 
 tion. But, on the contrary, we should understand, that such a com- 
 promise as would seem desirable by those who contemplate the case 
 
 * IIuss in his work on Tythes has dis- Comp. Depos. test, in the Stud. u. Ivrit 
 
 tinrtly expressed this conviction of his 1837, 1. p. 127. 
 
 respoctinjjf the ohjcctive character of sacra- * Huss had not asserted this uncondi- 
 
 nieiital acts indepeiulent of the suhjcctive tionally; but only that if the cler^^y vio- 
 
 ciiaracter of the person administering hUed tiieir duty and abused their power, 
 
 them: Cum non virtute jtropria, sed dei they might be deprived of tlie tythes. 
 
 haee faeiunt satis rite pro?.uut ecclcsiae. ^ lluss had hitlierto spoken only against 
 
 De dccimis, opp. I, fol. 134, 1. He was the abuse of indulgences by such as made 
 
 actually accused of having asserted in his a trade of spiritual things; not against tlie 
 
 sermon's about the year 1399, that only a right of granting induljicnces itself, with 
 
 priest in the state of grace and not one regard to which right it was still under 
 
 chargeable with mortal sin can truly con- controversy how far it extended, 
 
 secrate; but Huss was able to appeal to ♦ This confession is in the "Works of 
 
 the fact, that, from the tirst year of his ac- Huss, but more correctly printed in Pel- 
 
 tive labors as a preacher and onward, he zel, Urkundenbueh Nr. 230. 
 had uniformly taught the opposite to this. 
 
COMPROMISE OF 1411. 275 
 
 only from the outside, and are simply wishing for quiet and peace, 
 ■without any sympathy far the internal strug^^le of the antagonistic 
 forces, is a thing idle and nugatory in itself, bearing within it the 
 causes of its failure, the seeds of its own frustration ; for it is utterly 
 impossible to sever by outward interference the threads of history, to 
 force back again by some diplomatic mediation or other, deep-grounded 
 antagonisms taken in the midst of their development. The impelling 
 princii)les and ideas, which constitute history, are of miglitier force 
 than the purposes and designs of men. Tliis was seen in the present 
 instance. The reform tendency which had began with Militz, and 
 had been continually developing itself, and which must, finally, come 
 mto inevitable conflict with the hierarchical system, — the antagonism 
 between the two tendencies in the Bohemian church, which from this 
 time became daily more distinctly pronounced, could not be suppressed 
 by the momentary interest of the king and the archbishop, and by a 
 comoromise of their respective pohcies. Although, for the moment, 
 the letter of the compact might actually be fulfilled by all the parties 
 concerned, yet sooner or later would the more deep-grounded anta- 
 gonism again come to an outbreak. Archbishop Zbynek, however, 
 could hardly be quite in earnest about this compromise. He coald 
 not become reconciled with the anti-hierarchical party in Bohemia ; 
 nor could they, any more, abandon their principles. In truth, Zby- 
 nek afterwards expressly declared in his exculpatory letter to the king, 
 that he could not report to the pope that priests who did not observe 
 the interdict, should not be regarded as punishable. He must once 
 more complain, that what he called heresy was preached by many 
 clergymen, and that he was not permitted to apply his ecclesiastical 
 power of punishing to those who set forth erroneous doctrines. It did 
 not require, therefore, the dissatisfaction with King Wenzel who, aa 
 Zbynek pretended, had failed in fulfilling the conditions of the com- 
 promise, to prevent the archbishop from complying with his part of 
 the a'T'reement. Since then he could not but foresee that under these 
 circumstances it would be impossible for him to maintain his authority 
 in Bohemia, or to carry out his measures by force, he resolved, in- 
 stead of fulfilling the terms of the agreement, to quit Bohemia for the 
 present, and to seek assistance from Wenzel's brother, King Sigis- 
 mund, in Ofen.i In the beginning of September of the year 1411, 
 he carried this resolution into eifect. But death surprised him before 
 he could have an interview with King Sigismund.^ 
 
 ' The abbot of Dola rightly apprehend- tion, however, not a trace is to be found 
 
 ed the state of the case from liis own point in the writings of Huss. The abbot views 
 
 of view, as we see from what he says re- it rather in the light of a martyrdom, in 
 
 specting the flight of the archbishop : Af- which the archbi>hop passes away in the 
 
 fectus taedio (sciens, quod metus pro tern- midst of contests to receive the crown of 
 
 pore etiam in constaiuem virum cadcre victory. He says :M Has sect suam rebel- 
 
 possit) paululum abscondit sc, dum dimis- lionem justiticans magna cum laetitia cum 
 
 sa sui episcopatuspontiricali catlicdra exi- suis omnibus vocifcraiis atiirmabat, eun- 
 
 vit de terra et dioecesi proi)ria Bohemia. dem antistitem, tanquam primum et capi 
 
 ■■* If we may credit the abbot of Dola, talem adversarium suum, in vindictam et 
 
 this was represented by the Hussite party causae suae triumphum sic esse tanquam 
 
 as a divine judgment, of which interpreta- profugum exstinctum. On the contrary, 
 
276 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 The successor of Zbvnek was not inclined to tal^e a very lively inter- 
 est in church controversies ; and if an event had not soon after hap- 
 pened by which the opposite parties were necessarily thrown into a 
 more violent and important contest with each other than any which had 
 yet occurred, a temporary truce might have ensued. The individual 
 who assumed the archiepiscopal dignity was a man on good terms with 
 King Wenceslaus, quite ignorant of theological matters and ecclesiasti- 
 cal aflfairs, and who would have been glad to let everything go on ciui- 
 etly, a man who had been elevated to this post for reasons quite differ- 
 ent from a spiritual call. This was Albic of Unitzow, the king's phy- 
 sician, who, after obtaining some reputation as a medical author, had 
 but recently passed through the inferior spiritual grades, and was al- 
 ready at an advanced period of life. To him, peace was the most de- 
 sirable of all things. But where so many combustible materials were 
 present, it required but a small spark to set everything in flames. An 
 occasion of this sort grew out of circumstances connected with the en- 
 trance of the new archbishop upon his office, though without any fault 
 of his own. The papal legate, who bore the pallium to the newly ap- 
 pointed primate, was directed at the same time to publish the bull, put 
 forth in a manner wortliy of himself by Pope John XXII I ^ pronouncing 
 in the most awful forms the curse of the ban on the pope's enemy 
 King Ladislaus of Naples, adherent of Gregory XII, as on a heretic, 
 a schismatic, a man guilty of high treason against the majesty of God ; 
 and y)roc]aiming a crusade for the destruction of his party ; together 
 with a bull granting full indulgence to all who took part in this crusade. 
 All Avho personally bore arms in this crusade were promised, if they 
 truly repented and confessed themselves, (which, in this connection, 
 surely could mean nothing but a mere form,) the forgiveness of their 
 sins, as fully as in participating in any other crusade. Following the 
 example of cui)idity set up by Bonifiice IX, this bull offered the like 
 indulgence to those also who would contribute as much in money as, in 
 proportion to their means, they would have expended by actively en- 
 gaging in this crusade for the space of a month. The papal legate, 
 Avho from what he had heard about iluss might })robably expect to meet 
 withoj)position on his part, requested archbishop Albic to summon lluss 
 before him, and, in the archbishop's presence, demanded of him whether 
 he would obey the apostolical mandates ? Huss declared that he was 
 ready, with all his heart, to obey the apostolical mandates. Then said 
 the legate to the archljishop : " Do you see ? the master is quite ready 
 to obey the apostolical mandates V But Iluss rejoined : "My lord, 
 understand me well. I said I am ready, with all my heart, to fulfil 
 the apustolical mandates ; but I call apostolical mandates the doctrines 
 of the apostles of Christ ; and so far as the paj)al mandates agree with 
 these, so far I will obey theui most willingly. But if I see anything ia 
 them at variance with these, I shall not obey, even though the stake 
 were staring me in the face." i In fact he was too deeply imbued with 
 
 says he : ut sui ccrfnininis optimac rctri- ' Re(iui.situs coram Praf^cnsi archicpis- 
 butionis recipeiTt prafinia. Aiitiliussus, copo Albico per legatos lioiuani rontiticia 
 Pe^ iV, 2, pa<j. 418 et 419. 
 
nUSS AGAINST THE INDULGENCE OF JOHN XXIII. 277 
 
 the spirit of the o;ospel not to turn with dis^G^ust from such papal bulls 
 as these. He had the good of souls too near at heart not to feel con- 
 strained, by a sort of necessity, to prevent the corruption and ruin 
 ■which must accrue to religion and morality, from the execution of such 
 bulls. He had until now, as we have seen, simply attacked the abuses 
 in the matter of indulgences, practised by the wicked clergy. He was 
 now led to enter, more deeply, into the whole subject ; and by so do- 
 ing would, of necessity, be led also to advance another stage in his at- 
 tacks upon the pope. King Wenzel, who was incapable of calculating 
 the consecpiences of this affliir, was induced from motives of policy to 
 grant his consent to the publication of the bull. The forms of absolu- 
 tion, drawn up in accordance with this bull, were such that Stephen Pa- 
 letz, thus far the friend of Huss, and then dean of the theological fac- 
 ulty, himself first directed the attention of Hass to the objectionable 
 features in them, and declared to him that such things ought not to be 
 approved. Huss says of Paletz : " If he confesses the truth, he will 
 own that, in relation to the articles of absolution which he was the first 
 to make known to me, he declared them to contain palpable errors." ^ 
 Huss, therefore, might still be hoping to stand united with his old friends 
 in this contest. But the contrary was soon manifest. The opposite tem- 
 per of the men must needs come forth to the light, when the question to 
 be decided was, as at present, whether the cause of evangelical truth 
 should appear paramount to all temporal and churchly interests. And 
 in the minds of Stephen Paletz and Stanislaus of Znaira the course to 
 be taken in such a crisis seems to have been already decided by impres- 
 sions left at an earlier date, and the force of which could never be lost 
 on men of their stamp, who had no idea of becoming martyrs for the 
 cause of gospel truth. Among the persons sent by King Wencesla-us, 
 in the year 1408, as envoys to Pope John at Bologna, to treat for his 
 vote in favor of that prince as a candidate for the imperial dignity, were 
 these two individuals ; and the stand which they had taken until this 
 time, amid the controversies in Bohemia, may have brought it about — 
 unless, perhaps, it was brought about by the freedom of their remarks 
 on the way — that they were cast into prison and deprived of all they 
 possessed. It was only by the interposition of the college of cardinals 
 that they recovered their liberty. Huss certainly had just reasons for 
 suspecting that they were intimidated by this danger, into which they 
 
 Joannis XXIII, an velim mandatis apos- mandata apostolica doctrinas apostoloriim 
 tolicis obcdire, respond!, quod atfecto cor- Christi. et dc quanto mandata Pontiticis 
 dialiter implcre mandata apostolica. Le- concordaverint cum mandatis et doctrinis 
 pati vero hahentes pro convertibili man- apostolicis, secundum rcgulam legis Chris- 
 data apostolica et mandata Romani Pou- ti, de tanto volo ipsis paratissime obedire. 
 tificis, aestimabant, quod vellcm erectio- Sed si quid adversi concepero, non obe- 
 nem crucis contra regem Apuliae Ladis- diam, etiamsi ignem pro combustione mei 
 laum et contra omnem gentem sibi sub- corporis meis oculis praeponatis. lle- 
 ditam et contra Gregorium XII populo sponsio ad scriptum octo doctorum, opp, 
 praedicare. Unde dicebant legati : Ecce I, tbl. 293, 2. 
 
 domine archiepiscope ! ipse jam mandatis • Si enim vnlt veritatem fateri, recog- 
 
 domini nostri vult parere. Quibus dixi: noscet. quod articulos absolutionum, quos 
 
 Domini intelligatis me. Ego dixi, quod ipse mibi manu sua praesentaverat, dice- 
 
 atil'cto cordialitcr implore mandata apos- bat esse errores manu palpabiles. Resp. 
 
 tolica et ipsis omnino obedire sed voco ad script. Steph, Paletz, opp. I, fol. 264, 2. 
 
 VOL. V. 
 
 24 
 
278 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 had been brought by the free expression of their opinions, and that they 
 meant to be more cautious for the future. He says of Stanislaus, he 
 had boldly defended those forty-five articles in the convocation of the 
 univcrsitv, and continued to do so till he was forced to write the con- 
 trarv, till he was oppressed by the court of Rome, and robbed of hi3 
 property by him whom he now'^calls Head of the holy Catholic church. 
 And in replying to a statement of Stanislaus, that the pope was tbe 
 safest refuge" for"all the faithful, Huss remarked that Christ, with infi- 
 nitely more ease, could have j^repared a safer place of refuge for Stan- 
 islaus and Paletz, than in the Roman court, by enabling them to arrive 
 at the certain truth in a doubtful matter without subjecting them to rob- 
 bery and imprisonment.2 Intimidated in this way already, the two men 
 were not disposed to resist the execution of a bull in Bohemia which 
 met with the king's approbation, and to fall wholly out with the pope. 
 They now appeared as defenders of the po{)e's authority against Huss, 
 and 'stood up for obedience to superiors, whose commands no man should 
 presume to examine into. Paletz, in the name of the theological faculty, 
 offered a resolution of this sort : " We do not take it upon us to raise 
 objections against the lord apostolical or his letters, to pa>s any judg- 
 ment whatever upon them, or to determine anything with regard to 
 them; as we have no authority for it." 3 But Huss, in accordance 
 with his principles, could not believe in any such blind obedience ; 
 obedience to his Master Christ, the observance of his doctrine, and the 
 copying of his example, stood first in importance with him. This was 
 the rule by which everything was to be examined, by which the limit of 
 all obedience was determined ; and this principle it was, by occasion of 
 which it was laid to his charge that, by making the commands of the su- 
 perior dependant on the criticising judgment of his subjects, he relaxed 
 the bonds of all civil and ecclesiastical order ; and accordingly it waa 
 remarked, that by the course he pursued he would introduce the dan- 
 gerous error that' obedience might be refused to letters patent of popes, 
 emperors, kings, and lords, if the truth and reasonableness of such let- 
 ters could not be made clear to the understanding of the subjects. 
 And who could calculate what disorders would spring up, all over the 
 world, from this opinion ? ^ So he was called a revolutionist. His 
 opponents believed, it is true, that men were bound to unconditional 
 obedience to those in power only in that which was not absolutely 
 wicked, or that which is in itself indifferent.^ But to what extent was 
 the phrase, " that which is in itself indifferent," to be stretched ? As 
 for Huss, he could not look upon that which the bull required as a thing 
 mdifferent, but only as a thing directly opposed to the law of Christ, 
 
 ' Resp. ad script. Stanislai de Znoyma, * Resp. ad script, octo doct., opp. I, fol. 
 
 opp. I, fol. 288. 1. . ' 294, 1. 
 
 i ihid. fol. 284, 1. " ^P^i enim posuerunt, quod Papae sem- 
 
 ' Nolumus nee attcndimus nttcntare all- per est obediendum, dum pniccipit quod 
 
 quid contra dominum apostolicum aut est puruni l>onnm. et quod non est pururn 
 
 6uas litems, aut eas quovis inodo judicarc malum, sed medium, liesp. ad script. St. 
 
 vcl definire, cum ad lioc nuUam auetorita- Taletz, opp. I, fol. 263, 2. 
 
 tern halteamus. Adv. indulgcntias papales, 
 
 opp. I, fol. 175, 1. 
 
HUSS AGAINST TUE INDULGENCE OF JOHN XXHI. 279 
 
 and sinful. To obey, in this case, would be the same as to abandon his 
 principle of obey in *; God rather than man. He then spoke for the last 
 time, with his old friend Paletz, whom he next met as his fiercest ene- 
 my, preparing destruction for him at Constance. His last words to 
 him, the words with which he must sunder the tie of friendship that 
 had so lon<5 united them, were an adaptation of Aristotle's remark in 
 speaking of his relation to Socrates : *' Paletz is my friend, truth is 
 my friend ; and both being my friends, it is my sacred duty to give 
 the first honor to truth." ' An important crisis for the fate of IIuss and 
 the reform movements in Bohemia, was the sundering of the bond 
 which united the Bohemian party at Prague university, a party which 
 had thus far been kept together by identity of philosophical and theo- 
 logical, as well as of national interests. In proportion to the cordiality 
 of their earlier friendship, was now the virulence of the animosity be- 
 tween these men, as generally happens in transitions from friendship 
 to enmity. Neither his friend nor his teacher could ever forgive Huss 
 for presuming to stand forth against their authority, as well as the au- 
 thority of the whole theological faculty, composed of eight doctors, 
 for presuming to be more bold and more free minded than themselves. 
 Huss himself marks the critical moment which separated him forever 
 from his former associates : " The sale of indulgences and the lifting 
 of the standard of the cross against Christians, first cut me off from my 
 old friends."^ Compelled to stand forth as an opponent to his old 
 teacher Stanislaus of Znaim, he still never forgot his obligations to him 
 as an instructor ; as he says in the paper he wrote against him : — 
 '* Though Stanislaus was my teacher, from whom, in the disciphne of 
 the school, I learnt a great deal that is valuable, still I must answer 
 him as the truth impels me to do, that the truth may be more appa- 
 rent." 2 Huss felt himself called upon to lay a firm foundation for his 
 convictions on these subjects. He resolved to hold a disputation on 
 indulgences, before a numerous convocation of the university, where 
 also his friend Jerome intended to appear, having first, by many posted 
 bills, directed public attention to this disputation, which was to be held 
 on the 7th of June. We learn in what way Huss attacked the papal 
 bulls and the whole subject of indulgences, in this disputation, from 
 the paper in which he drew out at length his remarks on that occasion ; 4 
 and for the purpose of getting a more exact knowledge of the christian 
 position on which Huss planted himself, and of his activity at this jjar- 
 ticular crisis, we propose to enter a little more minutely into the con- 
 tents of this performance. Huss begins by explaining what had led 
 him into the contest : " I was moved to engage in this aftair — he says 
 
 ' Amicus Paletz, arnica Veritas, utrisque men veritate instigante animum raeum, 
 
 amieis existcntibus, sanctum est prachon- cogor ad sua dicta, ut magis Veritas nppa- 
 
 orare veritatem. Ibid. fol. 264, 2. reat, utcunque dabitur, respondere. liesp, 
 
 ^ Nam indulgentiarum venditio et crucis ad scr. Stanislai de Znoyma, opp. I, fol. 
 
 adversus Christianos erectio me ab isto 26.5, 1. 
 
 doctore primum separavit. Ibid. * Quaestio de indulgentiis sive de cm- 
 
 ^ Et quamvis ipse Stanislaus magister ciata papae Joannis XXIII fulminata con- 
 
 meus exstiterit, a quo in suis exercitis et tra Ladislaum Apuliae regem, opp. I, foL 
 
 actibus scliolasticis multa bona didici, ta- 174 seq. 
 
280 HISTORY OF the:? LOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 — by a tlireefold interest ; the glory of God, the advancement of holy 
 church, and my own conscience. Therefore in relation to all that is 
 now to be said, I call God almighty and omniscient to witness, that I 
 seek first of all things God's glory and the good of the church. For 
 to tliese objects every mature Christian is strictly bound by the com- 
 mandment of the Lord ; and for the good reason that every one should 
 love Christ and his churcli infinitely more than his bodily parents, tem- 
 poral goods, his own honor, or himself. It is moreover my opinion, that 
 the glory of Christ, and of liis bride the church, consist particularly in 
 the practical imitation of the life of Christ himself in this, that a man 
 lav aside all inordinate affections, and all human ordinances that would 
 hinder or obstruct him in the pursuit of his object." He protests that 
 he will never affirm anything contrary to the holy Scriptures that con- 
 tain Christ's law, or against his will. " And when I am taught, by 
 any member of the church, or by any other creature whatsoever, that I 
 have erred in ray speech, I will openly and humbly retract it." 
 *' Therefore — says he — in order that I may proceed more safely, I 
 will place myself on the immovable foundation, the corner stone, which 
 is the truth, the way, and the life, our Lord Jesus Christ ; and I hold 
 it fast, as the faith of the church, that he who observes not the ordi- 
 nance and the law which Christ established, and which he also taught and 
 observed by himself and by his apostles, does not follow the Lord Jesus 
 Christ in the narrow way thatleadeth to life, but goes in the broad way 
 which leads the members of the devil to perdition." Here Huss has laid 
 down the principle by which he conceived himself bound to try all human 
 ordinances, and the bulls of the popes as well. He maintains, on this prin- 
 ciple, that it is not permitted the faithful to approve these bulls. Noth- 
 ing but what proceeds from love, can be approved by Christ ; but as- 
 suredly neither the shedding of blood among Christians, nor the lay- 
 ing waste and impoverishing of countries, can have proceeded from love 
 to Christ ; nor could such an enterprise afford any opportunity for mar- 
 tyrdom. He explains what is meant by " indulgence," holding to the 
 term and sense in which it was no doubt understood in the pa[.al bulls, 
 and not going back to the original import of the old word indulc/eniia, 
 viz. remission. Indulgence denotes the pardon of sin ; which, in his 
 view, was the work of God alone ; but priestly absolution consisted in 
 this, that the priest in the sacrament declared the person confessing to 
 him to be in such a state of contrition as fitted him, if he died imme- 
 diately, to enter, without passing through the fires of purgatory, into 
 the heavenly mansions. And the power of the priest, in the last ex- 
 tremity, was not so restricted that he might not promise, so far as God 
 who revealed it to him permitted, the pardon of sin ; but it would be 
 too great presumption to suppose that any vicar of Christ could right- 
 fully attribute to himself such power of absolution, if God had never 
 given him a special revelation on the subject ; for otherwise he would 
 be guilty of the sin of blasphemy. But how would it help the matter, 
 supposing the subjects should clamorously demand such absolution ; for 
 assuredly they must believe that Christ, the most righteous judge, 
 "vvould judge them according to the measure of their merit or demerit. 
 
QUAESTIO DE INDULQENTIIS. 281 
 
 But though with Christ, who is present everywhere, contrition suffices, 
 still the sacrament of penance is very necessary, though it can avail 
 nothing except on the presupposition of contrition. It was a foolish 
 thing, therefore, for a priest not informed by divine revelation that 
 penance or some other sacrament availed for the salvation of the indi- 
 yidual to whom it was administered, to bestow on him unconditional 
 absolution. " Hence the wise priests of Christ give only a conditional 
 absolution, conditioned namely on the fact that the person confessing 
 feels remorse for having sinned, is resolved to sin no more, trusts in 
 God's mercy, and is determined for the future to obey God's command- 
 ments." Hence he argues that every one who receives such indul- 
 gence will actually enjoy it just so far as he is fitted to do so by his 
 relation to God. He holds it to be the duty of prelates to instruct the 
 people in this truth, so that the laity may not spend their time and la- 
 bor on that which cannot profit them. He declares it to be allowable 
 for a christian man to contribute in aid of a war carried on by the secu- 
 lar power, if it be a christian power ; which implies that it be not waged 
 for a mere earthly advantage, which the Christian should count as dross, 
 but for the defence of the faith, to bring back to unity those with 
 whom the war is carried on ; or if this end is frustrated on their part, 
 that charity should ever hold the reins, and the force of arms be em- 
 ployed only so long as might be necessary to open the way for reason- 
 able negotiations. He next declares that it was neither permissible 
 nor advantageous for a pope or for any bishop or clerk whatsoever, to 
 fight for wordly dominion or worldly wealth. This might be under- 
 stood from the example of Christ, whose vicar the pope was ; for Christ 
 did not fight, nor did he command his disciples to fight, but forbade 
 them. He here cites the words of Christ, Luke 22: 51. In the lan- 
 guage of St. Bernard, he maintains that the pope ought not to contend 
 for secular things. Without doubt he may exhort princes to protect 
 the faithful, by force, against the invasions of infidels or barbarians ; 
 but the secular sword belongs not to priests, but to the worldly profes- 
 sion of arms, the special intention of which is to defend the law of Christ 
 and of his church. But the safer way was to contend spiritually, not 
 with the secular sword, but with prayer to almighty God, to persuade 
 the enemy to concord by negotiations, even though by such a course, 
 which to men might seem like madness, one should in case of need suf- 
 fer death. This rule St. Paul gives, in Rom. 12: 19 ; " would that the 
 pope might humbly adopt this rule of St. Paul." He looked upon the 
 pope's conduct as contrary to the example of Christ, who reprimanded 
 his disciples for desiring to call down fire from heaven upon his ene- 
 mies, Luke 9: 54. '' that the pope, then — he says — would, like 
 the apostles, who desired to avenge their Lord, have addressed himself 
 to the Lord, and with the cardinals said to him, Lord, if it be thy will, 
 we would call upon all, of both sexes,^ to combine for the destruction 
 of Ladislaus and Gregory and their companions in guilt ; and perhaps 
 
 ' Alluding to an expression in the bull to the pope for destroying Ladislaus, and 
 in which all persons of both sexes and of are promised, on this condition, the par- 
 every rank, are called upon to furnish aid don of their sins. 
 
282 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 the Lord would have answered, Ye know not what spirit ye are of, 
 when ye seek to ruin so many souls of men by ban, sentence of con- 
 demnation, and destruction of life. Why do ye thus set at nought my 
 example, I who forbade my disciples to be so cruelly zealous against 
 those that crucified me, who prayed, Father! forgive them, they know- 
 not what they do ? If the pope, then, would subdue his enemies, let 
 liim follow the example of Christ, whose vicar he styles himself, let 
 him pray for his enemies and the church ; let him say. My kingdom is 
 not of tllis world ; let him show them kindness ; let him bless those that 
 curse him : for then will the Lord, according to his promise, give him 
 a power of utterance and wisdom, which they will never be able to 
 gainsay." Next, liuss noticed the objection of those who said, in those 
 days, Such literal imitation of Christ is confined to the '' evangelical 
 counsels," designed for those that strive after christian perfection, — 
 for the monks. As we may conclude from several expressions of Ilusa 
 already cited, he would doubtless have preferred to say that all Chris- 
 tians were bound to strive after the same ; and instead of fighting with 
 the secular sword, should contend only with the weapons of prayer and 
 the word ; but he was sensible that, in the present state of things, this 
 was not to be looked for. He distinguishes, as we have already ob- 
 served, the three different ranks of society; but he demands of the clergy 
 that they at least should so deport themselves, as if they considered 
 that to be a command for them which, to others, was only a counsel. 
 All priests, he says, should aim at the highest perfection, because they 
 are representatives of the apostles, and particularly the pope, who 
 should exhibit, in his conduct, the highest degree of perfection, after 
 the example of Christ and of Peter. " All priests are bound to the 
 same rule of perfection ; certainly the priesthood is the summit of per- 
 fection in the militant church. The precepts, therefore, that forbid 
 contention for earthly things, concern all priests in general." The 
 clergy, according to him, should literally observe the precepts of the 
 sermon on the mount ; as, for example. Matt. 5: 40, " from which it is 
 evident — he says — that, although not to go to law about earthly matters, 
 is for Christians of a subordinate star/e a counsel, yet as applied to priests 
 it changes, according to place and time, into a command. Ignorance in 
 these matters is no excuse for a priest ; because they are commanded, 
 as persons ordained to act as presidents, judges, and teachers, to have 
 knowledge of the law, and to explain it to those under them in all its 
 several parts. This ignorance of holy Scripture, being a guilty igno- 
 rance, renders the priests the more condemnable, as it is the mother 
 of all other errors and vices among themselves and the people." He 
 then passes to the laity, and endeavors to show that if they followed the 
 invitation of the bull, and by their contributions upheld the pope in 
 things at variance with his calling, they could not wholly excuse them- 
 selves by pleading ignorance, since it was ignorance which they might 
 doubtless have avoided ; in fact it seemed that there was no such igno- 
 rance, but on the contrary, they had knowledge enough, only it was 
 asleep ; for when they saw priests attending spectacles, putting them- 
 selves on a par with the world, meddling in secular business, they di- 
 
QUAESTIO DE INDULGENTIIS. 283 
 
 rectly murmured against them, in accordance with the Catholic tra- 
 dition, though these were trifles when compared with carrying on 
 war and legal suits for earthly ends. After showing that the laity were 
 without excuse for their ignorance, which he ascribes, moreover, to the 
 lack of a real interest in religion, he proceeds to speak of the absolute 
 indifference which led many to obey the bull, who said, " What matters 
 it to us, whether the bull is a good or a bad one ? We can eat and drink 
 without disturbance, if we are left to our peace ; others may do what 
 they please." He then comes to a third class, who obeyed from cow- 
 ardice. And this reproach he casts particularly upon the theologians ; 
 men conversant with the Scriptures, who obeyed, he says, in opposition to 
 their own consciences, who thouglit of the bull in one way and spoke open- 
 ly of it in another. " They tremble — he says — who should yield to no 
 fear of the Avorld ; tremble lest they should lose their temporal goods, 
 the honor of this world, or their lives." He then attacks the unchris- 
 tian expressions in the bull, where it spoke of destroying Ladislaus to 
 the third generation, in contradiction to Ezek. 18: 20 ; where it calls 
 Ladislaus and his adherents blasphemers and heretics, although this 
 was not manifest from any trial to which lie had been subjected, 'and 
 although his subjects were included, poor weak people, men and women, 
 acting under constraint Referring to the definition above given of 
 indulgence, he says : " On this point, he who is blind may judge, 
 whether pardon of sin is not bestowed for a consideration in money." 
 Is not this true simony ? He then quotes some of the really scandalous 
 language used by the papal commissioners for the sale of indulgences, 
 — language well calculated to revolt every christian feeling, as it had 
 at first revolted even the feelings of Paletz — such expressions as the 
 following : '' By the apostolical power entrusted to me, I absolve thee 
 from all the sins which, to God and to me thou hast truly confessed, 
 and for which thou hast done penance. If, as thou art not able per- 
 sonally to take part in this enterprise, thou wilt act according to ray di- 
 rection and that of the other commissioners, in furnishing means and 
 helps for this cause, and if thou hast done all according to thy ability, 
 I bestow on thee the most perfect forgiveness of all thy sins, both from 
 the guilt and the punishment of them, in the name of the Father, Son, 
 and Holy Ghost." Having first, not without reason, remarked that the 
 words " as thou art not able," might probably contain a falsehood, Huss 
 dwells more particularly on the blasphemous style in which absolution 
 is declared. It was one and the same thing, he said, to bestow the 
 forgiveness of all sins, and to impart the Holy Ghost. Both presup- 
 posed divine power. And for a sinful man to pretend to impart the 
 Holy Ghost, was too enormous a presumption ; for Christ alone, on 
 whom the heavenly dove descended as a symbol of the Holy Ghost, 
 could bestow the baptism of the Spirit. God grants the pardon of sin 
 to none but those whom he has first rendered fit to receive it. Since 
 then a Christian can render another person fit no otherwise than by la- 
 boring for it by prayer or preaching, or by contributing to it through 
 his own merits,^ it was evident that the being rendered fit for it by God, 
 
 ^ Orando, praedicando, merendo. 
 
28-1 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 must precede forgiveness. He then takes notice of a subterfuge : it 
 might be said it was but a conditioned indulgence, given to the truly 
 contrite, and therefore to the elect. This was sophistical. In this case 
 there would be no need of indulgences. So, it might be said of any one 
 that, on the supposition he was of the divine essence, he would be very 
 God. lie then takes notice of the sophistical pretence, that the pope's 
 real object was neither more nor less than this, to rule the church of 
 Christ in peace and tranquillity ; but to secure this object, he must re- 
 sist his adversaries. The pope could not deceive God. God knew per- 
 fectly on what the pope's heart was intent, his ruling aim impUcite or ex- 
 l>Ucite. And if he who should imitate the poverty of Christ, fought for 
 worldly rule, he committed a grievous sin, of which every man was an abet- 
 tor who upheld him in so doing. He thinks that if the pope really pos- 
 sessed a plenitude of power to bestow indulgence on all, christian char- 
 ity required no less of him than that he should show this kindness to all 
 alike. Huss portrays the injurious effects produced by these indul- 
 gences. " The foolish man of wealth is betrayed into a false hope ; the 
 law of God is set at nought ; the rude people give themselves up more 
 freely to sin ; grievous sins are thought lightly of; and, in general, the 
 people are robbed of their property. Far be it, therefore, from the 
 faithful to have anvthincr to do with such indulf:;ences." With regard 
 to these expressions which referred to the common fund of all the good 
 works in the church, to be distributed by the pope, Huss remarks : in- 
 dividuals share in this common fund only in proportion as they are 
 qualified to share in it by their charity ; but it is not in the power of 
 the pope ; it belongs to God alone to determine the greater or less 
 degree of charity in individuals ; for to do this presupposes infinite 
 power ; it depends on the good pleasure of God. Therefore it is not in 
 the power of the pope to give any one a share in intercessions by the 
 community of holy church ; and consequently it was absurd for him to 
 attribute any such power to himself, since the pope himself should, with 
 David, humbly say, ' Make me, God, a companion of all them that 
 fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts. In place of such an im- 
 parting of spiritual fellowship with all the good in the church, Huss 
 would rather substitute this : Let the Christian live a righteous life, 
 following Christ his head in all virtue, and especially in humility and 
 patience ; and then let him rely on partaking of his merits, so far as 
 God may grant it, and assuredly if he thus perseveres unto the end, he 
 will attain to the most complete forgiveness of his sins ; and as his 
 life grows conformed to the example of Christ, in the same proportion 
 will he share of his mercy and of the glory of the blessed." He says 
 that, from the proclamations of the commissioners for granting indul- 
 gences, it was evident that their sole object was to extort money from 
 the people. Not an instance was to be found in Scripture of a holy 
 man saying to any one, I have forgiven thee thy sins ; I absolve thee. 
 Nor were any to be found who had absolved from punishment or guilt 
 for a certain number of days. The theological faculty, who said that, 
 hundreds of years ago, the holy fathers instituted indulgences, had 
 taken good care not to express themselves more definitely, and to say, 
 
QUAESTIO DE INDULGENTIIS. 285 
 
 a thousand years, two or three hundred, or any other particular num- 
 ber of centuries ago. Nor had they ventured to name any of these 
 holy fathers. He will not allow that the sentence of the pope is an ulti- 
 mate and definitive one ; Christ is the highest expounder of his own 
 law, as well by his words as by his deeds ; and he is ever with his 
 faithful, according to his promise that he would be with them even unto 
 the end of the world. lie then points to examples of uneducated and 
 ignorant popes, not omitting to notice the fabulous pope Joan. lie dis- 
 putes the position, that when the great mass of the clergy, monks, and 
 laity have approved of the papal bulls, it would be foolish to contradict 
 so large a majority. By the same sort of reasoning, anything might be 
 justified, however wicked and vile, provided only that it was approved 
 by the majority ; and anything condemned, however true and good, 
 if sanctioned only by a minority. He quotes, in illustration, Jer. 8: 
 10 ; according to the principle above stated, it was folly in the prophet 
 to contradict so vast a multitude. " Therefore — says he — it is the 
 custom of wise men, whenever difficulties occur with regard to any truth, 
 laying it open for discussion, to consider, first of all, what the faith of 
 holy Scripture teaches on the point in question ; and whatever can be 
 so determined, that they hold fast as a matter of faith. But if holy 
 Scripture decides neither on one side nor the other, they let the sub- 
 ject alone, as one which does not concern them, and cease to dispute 
 whether the truth lies on this side or that." In resisting the authority 
 of the pope, Huss was accused of having resisted the ordinance of God, 
 according to Rom. xiii. To this he replies : The charge is true, if 
 by the authority of the pope is meant his authority as ordained of God ; 
 but it is false so far as it relates to the pretended and arrogated au- 
 thority of the pope.^ 
 
 After Huss had thus attacked the papal bulls with arguments calcu- 
 lated to impress every thinking mind that lay open to the truth, his 
 friend Jerome came forward and delivered a glowing discourse, which 
 kindled the greatest enthusiasm in the hearts of the youth. In the 
 evening he was escorted home, in triumph, by large bodies of the stu- 
 dents.2 The excitement produced by the transactions of this day, 
 spread further ; and, as it usually happens when the impulse has been 
 given to some great movement, however pure and unobjectionable at 
 the outset, that it no longer stands in the power of those who began it, 
 to control and keep it within bounds, but violent passions soon enter in, 
 
 * The abbot of Dola, who accuses Huss indulgences. Being asked what he held 
 also as a contemner of indulgences, scru- concerning indulgences, he declared. The 
 pies not to signalize these indulgences, indulgences of the pope and cardinals 
 which, in the period of which we are writ- were legal, and such could be bestowed — 
 ing, were the occasion of so much mis- wherein it was still left doubtful what no- 
 chief, as Romanae sedis consuetas et sa- tion he framed to himself of indulgences, 
 lutares indulgentias, and he ascribes the and to what extent he would allow them — 
 force supposed to reside in them to the but a purchased indulgence, an indulgence 
 merit of Christ's passion. Dialog, vola- made a matter of barter and sale by sel- 
 tilis, Fez thesaur. IV, 2, pag. 474. lers of indulgences, quaestuarii was no in- 
 
 2 At the second hearing of Jerome of dulgonce at all, but an abuse of jpdul- 
 
 Prague at Constance, the subject was also gences. V. d. Hardt, IV, 2, pag. 752 et 
 
 brought up of his attack at this time on 753. 
 
286 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 and with their fierce burnings vitiate the purity of the beginning, so it 
 tuiTied out on the present occasion. Jerome of Prague wanted the pru- 
 dence and moderation of Huss. A mock procession was got up ; the 
 pa[al bulls, suspended from the necks of certain indecent women, were 
 carried, in the midst of a vast concourse of people, through the princi- 
 pal (piarters of the city. The chariot conveying the women was sur- 
 rounded by armed men of the party, vociferating, " To the stake with 
 the letters of a heretic and rogue ! " In this way the bulls were finally 
 conveyed to the Pranger, where a pile of faggots had been erected, 
 upon which they were laid and burned. It was intended as a parody 
 on the burninfT of Wicklif's books two vears before.' That every fool- 
 ish proceeding ought not to be laid to the charge of Huss, which the 
 passionate leader of his adherents undertook, that he was far from ap- 
 proving of all that these persons either did or said, is evident from his 
 own words in many of his letters, plainly intimating his dissatisfaction 
 with many who professed to be of his party, but whose life did not cor- 
 respond with the doctrines they supported, and his disapprobation of 
 the violent language employed by many of his adherents. Thus in 
 re[>ly to Paletz, who had accused him of apostasy from the whole faith 
 of Christendom, he says : " Verily, if I allowed this to be true of my- 
 self and of my christian brethren, I should be as false as he is ; for I 
 hope, by the grace of God, that I am a Christian, departing in no re- 
 spect from the faith, and that I should prefer to suffer a horrible death 
 rather than to affirm anvthin"; contrary to the faith, or to transgress 
 the commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the same I hope 
 also of many of my adherents, though I observe with deep pain that 
 some of them are blameworthy in their morals." 2 He also says, in 
 this tract against Paletz, with regard to the abusive language which he 
 used towards his adversaries, whom he styled heretics, " Hitherto I 
 have used no such language as this against my adversaries ; and I 
 should be sorry if any one of my party should brand his opponent as a 
 heretic, or style him a Mohammedan, or ridicule or attack him in any 
 other way that implied a disregard to the law of love." 3 Alluding to 
 the same person, he sa3'S in another place : " He holds us all to be 
 AVicklifites, and all therefore to be, in his opinion, reprobates ; but I 
 hope there is much which is good on both sides, and believe that there 
 
 ' We join what we find stated in the Prafrue, but "Woksa, of Waldstcin, one of 
 
 articles of coniphiint ajrainst Jerome of Wenzel's favorites, was the author of this 
 
 I'rague, in Constance (V. d. llardt IV, 2, buffoonery, thoujrli Jerome may not have 
 
 pajr. 672). with Pahitzy's representation, been averse to it. Ilenee it is evident, 
 
 who appeals to the manuscript report of a that Jerome said nothing; untnie, wlien on 
 
 student, who had himself l)orne a part in his second licarin^j: at Constance he assert- 
 
 tlie ftrocession, (Tahit/y III. 1, p. 278). ed, tliat lie did not hum the bull, ( V. d. 
 
 At the council of Constance (where, how- Hardt IV. 2. paff- 753). 
 ever, the year 1411 is erroneously put * Quamvis dolenter pcrcipio aliquos in 
 
 down hy V. d. llardt. as it must have been more deviare. licsp. ad scr. Talet/,, opp. 
 
 the year 1412) Jerome of Prajrue is desij;- I, fol. 260, 1. 
 
 rated as the jretter uj> of this whole thin;;. ^ Et doleo, cum aliquis de parte nostra 
 But, Palatzy proves from the manuscript aliquem haereticat vel apjK'llat Mahomet- 
 articles of complaint laid before the coun- istam. vel aliter infamat aut impug^nat ca- 
 cil of Constance a^^ainst Kin^' Wenceslaus, ritatis regula praetermissa. Ibid. fol. 262, 
 (111, 1, p. 277 note) that not Jerome of 2. 
 
ROYAL EDICT IN FAVOR OF THE POPE'S BULL. 287 
 
 are sinners also on both sides ; and it never was, nor ■will it ever be, 
 a<2;rceable to me, to hear any should style the party opposed to them 
 Mohammedans or seducers." ^ Great self-control and prudence were 
 assuredly required to enable a man standin;^ at the head of his party, 
 in a time of such violent excitement, to jtid^.) so dispassionately of hi;? 
 opponents, includin<J5 some who were once his friends, but who now in- 
 dulged the most violent animosity towards him, and to pass so severe a 
 criticism on the conduct of his own party. We caimot fail to recogni:5e 
 here the spirit of Him who knew how to distinguish blasphemers against 
 the Son of man from blasphemers against the Holy Ghost. And this is 
 one trait which distinguishes Hass from Wicklif. 
 
 The co-pohtical ecclesiastical motives which governed King Wen- 
 ceslaus did not leave him at liberty to contemplate these move- 
 ments any longer without disquietude, though it was already too late 
 to think of putting a stop to them by a single enactment. As the 
 king had approved the papal bull, had ordered it to be proclaimed, 
 and permitted the preaching of indulgences ; as he wished to maintain 
 a good understanding with Pope John, he must look about for the 
 means of asserting and carrying out what he had begun. He sum- 
 moned around him the lords of counsel and the elders of the communi- 
 ties of all the three towns, out of which the great capital had "arisen, 
 and directed them to forbid for the future all public insult of the pope, 
 as well as all public resistance of the papal bulls, on pain of death, and 
 to be vigilantly careful that all occasions of excitement on both sides 
 should be avoided. This royal edict was proclaimed by a herald 
 through the whole city as a warning to all. 2 It is probable, however, 
 that the king after all was not so very solicitous that these measures 
 should be rigorously executed in their whole extent ; nor is it clear 
 that he had power enough to enforce them. The getter up of the 
 mock procession against the bull of which we have just spoken still 
 retained his relations with the king.3 Huss could not be prevented 
 by any power on earth from fulfilling his vocation as a preacher of the 
 gospel, and from saying to his congregation whatever his duty as a 
 preacher and curer of souls made it incumbent on him to say. He 
 could not keep silent concerning the errors connected with the subject 
 of indulgences ; he must point out the great peril to which a reliance 
 on indulgences, as he had already demonstrated in his public disputa- 
 tion, exposed the souls of the people. And yet Queen Sophia did not 
 cease her attendance at the chapel of Huss ; and this new contest 
 could only serve to increase the number of his hearers and their en- 
 thusiasm. The large concourse of noblemen, knights, men and women 
 of all ranks and conditions, who assembled around Huss, is described 
 
 ' Ego autem ex utraque parte spero esse eeslaus rcgio suae potestatis imperio con- 
 
 multos bonos, et ex utraque etiam parte stituisset etiam voce praeconis per civita- 
 
 aestimo esse peccatores, nee unquam milii tem Pragcnsem decreto publico, ut ncqua- 
 
 placuit. imo nee placel)it, quod quidam quam aliquis audcat rebellare et contradi- 
 
 vocant doctoris partem Mahometistas vel cere occulte vel publice sub capital! poena 
 
 seductores. Ibid. fol. 264, 1. indulgentiis papalibus caet. Fez, IV, 2, 
 
 2 Palatzy, III, 1, p. 278, and Steph. Do- pag. 380. 
 lanus in his Antihussus : Dum eniin Wen- ^ Palacky, III, 1, p. 278. 
 
288 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 by his opponciits ; especially the thousands of pious women who were 
 denominated Be<2;uines — a nick-name like the term Pietists in later 
 times ; and one which had been applied already to the followers of 
 ^lilitz.i Xow, when the hearts of the laity, of men who belonged to 
 the class of industrious artisans, among whom lluss had many ad- 
 herents, were seized by the power of truth in his sermons, and then 
 going into the churches heard the sellers of indulgences preaching up 
 witli shameless effrontery the value of their spiritual merchandize, in 
 direct outrage to the gospel truth they had listened to in Bethlehem 
 cha[;el, nothing else was to be expected, especially in a state of so 
 much excitement among the youth, than that violent scenes should 
 ensue. 
 
 A number of priests, distributed among the several parish churches, 
 were engaged, on the 10th of July, in publishing the papal bulls and 
 inviting the people to purchase indulgences. On this occasion three 
 young men belonging to the class of common artisans, by the name of 
 John, Martin, and Stasek, stepping forward, cried out to one of these 
 preachers, "Thou liest ! Master Huss has taught us better than 
 that. We know it is all false." After a while they were seized, 
 conducted to the council-house, and, on the next day, in pursuance of 
 the royal edict,2 condemned to death. Huss, on being informed of 
 this, felt it to be his duty to interpose and endeavor to save these 
 yomig men, doomed to fall victims to the gospel truth which they had 
 heard from his lips, and which burned in their hearts. Accompanied 
 by 2000 students he repaired to the counsel house. He demanded a 
 hearinif for himself and some of his attendants. At length he was 
 permitted to appear before the senate. He declared that he looked 
 upon the fault of those young men as his own, and that he, therefore, 
 much more than they, deserved to die. They promised him that no 
 blood should be shed, and bade him tranrpiillize the excited feelings of 
 the others. Hoping that they would keep their word, he left the coun- 
 sel house together with his follo\vers.3 But some hours afterwards, 
 
 ' See ahovc. p. 182. The words of the God in his own churcli. Ibid. p. 146. 
 
 abhot of I)oh\ in Antihussus: Nobilibus, * It is noticeable t!iat when Dr. Nas of 
 
 niilitaril)us, plebeiis, inulieril)us, tuorum Prague had testified against Huss at his 
 
 tibi conci'ptuuni cuniulum multiplicas. trial in Constance, that he himself was 
 
 Fez, IV, 2, pag. .390. Tl)e Boguines are present cum rex mandasset, blasphemos 
 
 mentioned, as followers of lluss, in Anti- ultimo supplieio atlici, Huss directly de- 
 
 lius-u-;. I'e/. IV, 2, p. .381. and in Dial, vo- dared this to be false. Yet, after what 
 
 lat., il'id pag. 492. In the trial at Prague, has been said, it cannot be doubted, that 
 
 we learn that over 3000 persons met the king did issue such an edict against 
 
 around Huss in the Bethlehem cha[)el. the dis|»uters of indulgences. There was 
 
 Vid. Dcjios. test, in tiie Stud. u. Krit, something then, we know not what, pcr- 
 
 1837. 1, ]). 147. It was thrown out as a haps, in the form of that testimony, which 
 
 reproach against Huss, that he had no con- led Huss to express himself in this way. 
 
 gregation of his own. but drew hearers to Third liearing of Huss in Constance, V. 
 
 liim from other parishes, and away from d. Hardt IV, 2, p. 327. 
 
 other parish priests. But to this he re- ^ The abbot of Dola relates the tran- 
 
 plicd : No man was bound to listen to sactlon as follows: Facto slquidem prac- 
 
 Cod's word nowhere else excejjt In his dlctorum rebellium justo animatlversionls 
 
 own parish-church ; for else no monk excldlo, accessisti vel mlslsil plurlbus val- 
 
 could ever preach, and no parish priest or latus soclls ad maturum et dlscretum mag- 
 
 parlsh vicar could allow persons belong- nae chilis pruilentiae Pragenslum con<u- 
 
 ing to other parishes to hear the word of lum concilium, et praedicatione pompatloa 
 
EXECUTION OF THE THREE YOUNG MEN. 289 
 
 when the multitude had, for the most part, dispersed, they ventured 
 to proceed to the execution of the sentence. Resistance being appre- 
 hended from the Hussite party, the prisoners were conducted under a 
 large escort of soldiers to the place of death, and, as in the meantime, 
 the concourse of spectators running together in the highest state of 
 excitement, increased every moment, they hurried the execution, and 
 finished it even before arriving at the destined spot. But the adhe- 
 rents of IIuss had no intention of resorting to violence. When the 
 headsman, after his work was done, cried out, " Let him who does the 
 like expect to suffer the same fate," many among the multitude ex- 
 claimed at once : " We are all ready to do the like and to suffer 
 the same." This execution could have no other effect than to increo,se 
 the excitement of feeling and the enthusiasm of the people for the 
 cause of Huss. Those three young men would of course be regarded 
 by the party they belonged to, as martyrs for the truth. It would be 
 impossible to devise anything better calculated to promote any cause, 
 bad or good, than to give it martyrs. Several, and in particular the 
 so called Beguines of this party, of whom we have spoken above, 
 dipped their handkerchiefs in the blood of the victims, and treasured 
 them up as precious relics. i A woman who witnessed the execution 
 offered white hnen to enshroud the dead bodies ; and another indivi- 
 dual who was present. Master von Jitzin, attached to the party of 
 Huss, hastened with a company of students to convey the bodies to 
 Bethlehem chapel. Borne thither as saints, with chanted hymns 
 and loud songs, they were buried amid great solemnities, under the 
 direction of Huss. This event gave new importance to Bethlehem 
 chapel in the eyes of the party of Huss. They named it the chapel 
 of the Three Saints.^ It is certain that Huss took a Hvely interest in 
 the death of these young men. He thought they might justly be 
 called martyrs for christian truth, like others whose memory is pre- 
 served in the history of the church. Nor was there any thing in this 
 which could justly subject him to the slightest reproach. Certainly 
 by his sermons he contributed to nourish the enthusiasm with which 
 the memory of these witnesses for the truth was cherished among the 
 people. But as public rumor, in such times of commotion, is not 
 wont to discriminate between the different agents, and the different 
 shares taken by each in a transaction, but is inclined to lay the whole 
 upon the shoulders of the one who happens to be the most important 
 individual, so Huss soon came to be pointed out as the person who 
 headed the procession at the burial of the three young men. This is 
 reported by the abbot of Dola.^ Accordingly the blame of the whole 
 
 ausus es clamosa voce, non solum ipsorum Pez, IV, 2 pag. 380 et 381. 
 
 dcbitam executioncm, sed ct regiam et in ^ Words of the abbot of Dola:- Ut illo- 
 
 lioc omnino sanctam maturi decreti jus- rum sanguinem linteis, maxime begmae 
 
 sionom, non solum rcprehendere, sed et tuae et quidam alii, extergerent. Ibid. 
 
 damnare. In quo utiquc crimen iaesae pag. 381. 
 
 majestatis perpetrasti, asserente te et di- ' j^^ ^^ te largiente et te donante locus 
 
 cente : Injuste illi damnati sunt; ego feci ille tuae cathedrae summus non jam Beth- 
 
 et ego feram. Ecce ego et omnes qui me- Ichem, sed ad tres sanctos per te et tuos 
 
 cunf sunt, parati sumus eandem excipere complices vocaretur. Ibid. 
 
 sententiam. Steph. Dol. in Antihussus, « Accessisti siquidem et jacentia rebel- 
 
 VOL. V. 25 
 
 / 
 
290 HISTOET OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 affair is thrown upon Huss at the council of Constance ; but he could 
 deny, with truth, that the procession had been got up at his instiga- 
 tion. ^ It is indeed possible, though the statement of so violent an 
 opponent as the abbot of Dola cannot be received as altogether trust- 
 worthy, that it was remarked by Huss or some one of his followers : 
 If that Wenccslaus, whom his brother, Boleslav, the cruel, caused 
 to be executed, deserved to be called a martyr, much more were 
 those three younir witnesses to evauiielical truth entitled to he honored 
 as martyrs ; or that Huss, following the precedent of Matthias of 
 Janow, spoke disapprovingly of the superstition and quackery with 
 which the traffic in relics, whether genuine or counterfeit, was car- 
 ried on ; or that, one of his adherents had said, the bones of these 
 three, who ought certainly to be reverenced as witnesses for the truth, 
 must be more precious to the memory of the pious than those relics 
 that were held to be present, at one and the same time in several 
 places.2 But we may hear what Huss himself says concerning these 
 witnesses of the truth, as his Avords are recorded in his book Be eccle- 
 sia, written at a somewhat later period. After citing the passage in 
 Dan. 11 : 33, he remarks : " Experience gives us the right interpre- 
 tation of these words, — since persons made learned by the grace of 
 God, simple laymen and priests, many taught by the example of a 
 good life, because they openly resisted the lying word of Antichrist, 
 have fallen under the edge of the sword ; of which we have an example 
 in those three laymen, John, Martin, and Stasek, who, because they 
 contradicted the lying disciples of Antichrist, fell victims to the sword.'* 
 Then, in allusion to what afterwards transpired in consequence of these 
 commotions, he adds : " But others who gave up their hves for the 
 truth, died the death of martyrs, or were imprisoned, and still have not 
 denied the truth of Christ, priests, and laymen, and even women." 3 
 
 This first blood having been shed, the persecuting party thought it 
 inexpedient to venture immediately upon any thing further. They 
 perceived the danger of attempting to put a stop to these commotions 
 by force. They had learned by experience to what a height the 
 
 Hum corpora sub mediastino sustulisti : et et publica concione in sanctorum nunie- 
 cum ea, quae tibi videbatur, summa rove- rum relatos esse. But Huss declares this 
 rentia ad catbedram tuae superbiae, ca])el- to be false, as he was not present when 
 lam dictam Bethlelicm detulisti; te ipso the atiair occurred : Falsum est, cadavera 
 et scholarilius tuae societatis, sanctae, obe- a me ad sepulturam cum aliqua pompa 
 dientiae contrariis, clainosis et altissiniis dclata esse, cum ego ne adfuerim quidem. 
 vocibus usque ad inferni novissima con- V. d. Ilardt, IV, 2, paj;. 327. 
 crepaiitiltus: Isti sunt sancti, et hnjusmo- ' They are the words of the abbot of 
 di plurima. Iltid. This serves to confirm Dola: Venerationem sanctorum ossiura 
 the account ^'wt-n above of the solemnities juxta ritum ecclesiae sanctae cum tuis re 
 observed in conveying the bodies of tiiosc probas dicens, quod S. Wenccslaus modi- 
 three young men to Bethlehem chapel, co nnirtyrio, id est fratricidio regnum pro- 
 except that the abbot makes no distinc- meruit martyrii : et hie cum aliis Sanctis, 
 tion of persons, and charges liuss alone quos saccrdotes et monachi praedicant, 
 with the whole affair. habent unius multa capita, multa bracchia 
 ' At the council of Constance this also et diversa ossa, quae utitjue non sanc- 
 ■was introduced among the articles of corn- torum. sed vilium cadaverum esse potius 
 plaint against IIuss, regarding the burial reputantur. Ibid. 
 of the three young men : Eos per eundem ^ De eeelcsia, opp. I, fol. 245, 2. 
 Hus cum pompa scholastieorum elatos 
 
THE EIGHT DOCTORS. 291 
 
 enthusiasm of the people had already mounted by the death of those 
 three young men. Accordingly the other prisoners, who were now 
 looking for nothing but martyrdom, were set at lar^e. The conflict 
 between the two parties, which had divided the university, since the 
 dispute about the papal bulls relating to indulgence and a crusade, 
 still went on, and grew more violent ; the smaller party, consisting of 
 those who now declared themselves opposed to all Wicklifite doctrines 
 and in favor of the whole system of papal absolutism, and the larger 
 party of those, who espoused the cause of reform, at the head of whom 
 stood Huss. The former had on their side all who were attached to 
 the hierarchy ; and they supposed they could reckon also on the help 
 of King Wenceslaus, whom, in fact, they had joined on defending the 
 bull, and who had issued the edict against its opponents. Those eight 
 doctors, at whose head stood at that time Paletz, as Dean, believed 
 they were entitled to represent themselves as constituting the theolo- 
 gical faculty. They now united in condemning the 45 articles of 
 Wicklif, although some of them had before this defended those arti- 
 cles ; and, hence, Huss calls them the canerhantes. They declared 
 to the prelates their agreement with them in the earlier resolutions 
 against those articles ; and, by a course which to Huss appeared 
 retrograde, though to the advocates of hierarchy it could appear no 
 otherwise than an advance, gave them the highest satisfaction. They 
 next proceeded to condemn the 45 articles in a solemn session. ^ To 
 these propositions they added six others. 1. " That he is a heretic who 
 judges otherwise than the Roman church concerning the sacraments 
 and the spiritual power of the keys," which doubtless refers to the 
 proceedings of Huss against indulgences. 2. " That in these days, 
 to suppose that great Antichrist is present and rules, who, according 
 to the faith of the church, and according to Holy Scripture, and the 
 holy teachers, shall appear at the end of the world, is shown by expe- 
 rience to be a manifest error." This refers to the doctrine concern- 
 ing Antichrist, which, as we have seen, proceeded first from Militz, 
 had been further unfolded by Matthias of Janow, and so passed over 
 to Huss. 3. " To say that the ordinances of the holy fathers, and 
 the praiseworthy customs in the church, are not to be observed, be- 
 cause they are not contained in Holy Scripture, is an error." This is 
 evidently directed against a doctrine of Huss, which w^e have explain- 
 ed on a former page. 4. " That the relics, the bones of the saints, 
 tho clothes and robes of the faithful are not to be reverenced, is an 
 error. 5. " That priests cannot absolve from sins and forgive sins, 
 ■when, as ministers of the church, they bestow and apply the sacra- 
 ment of penance, but that they only announce that the penitent is 
 absolved, is an error." This also plainly enough refers to the doctrine 
 set forth by Huss in the controversy about indulgences. 6. " That 
 
 * Huss says of Paletz : Recepit articu- in praetorio condemnarent. Resp. ad scr. 
 los, qui sunt praelatis conttarii et cucurrit Paletz, opp. I, fol. 259, 2. This is the con- 
 ad eos, qui gavisi sunt videntes ipsum et demnation in praetorio to which Huss ia 
 Stanislaum cancrisantes. Unde inito con- his writings subsequent to this time in de- 
 Bilio pactum fecerunt invicem, ut articulos fense of these articles often alludes. 
 
292 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 the pope may not, -^-here it becomes necessary, call npon the faithful 
 or demand contributions of them for the defence of the Apostolical 
 See, of the Roftian church and city, and for the coercion and sub- 
 jection of opponents and enemies among Christians, while he bestows 
 on the faithful who loyally come to the rescue, show true penitence, 
 have confessed and are mortified, the full forgiveness of all sins, is an 
 error." ' Huss represents it as a piece of arrogance in those eight 
 doctors to think themselves entitled to act in the name of the entire 
 faculty, and to put forth their condemnation as a condemnation by the 
 whole faculty.2 Now, as this party could not reckon, as appears evident 
 from what has been said, on the concurrence of the whole university, 
 and therefore could not take any open step in common, they, as the 
 theological faculty, applied to the magistracy of Prague, and petition- 
 ed them to obtain the king's consent, that the teaching and spreading 
 abroad of those articles should be forbidden by a royal edict. This 
 theological faculty had, moreover, declared that certain preachers, on 
 Avhose account \iolent insurrections, strifes, and divisions had sprung 
 up among the people, ought to be silenced. And they stated, as their 
 last reason, that this was the way to restore peace among the people. ^ 
 A cunningly devised means, to be sure, for putting an end to all strife, 
 to allow only one party to speak, and enjoin absolute silence on the 
 other. Such an edict was now to be procured from the king.4 The 
 king granted but a part of the demand. He actually issued an edict, 
 forbidding the preaching of those doctrines on penalty of banishment 
 from the land ; at the same time, however, he caused the faculty to 
 be told, that they had better employ themselves in refuting those 
 doctrines, than in trying to effect the suppression of them by an edict 
 of prohibition. But an edict of prohibition against the preaching of 
 this or that individual, was a thing he would never consent to. As 
 the faculty could not fail to see the reproach implied in this language 
 of the king, they sought to justify Avhat they had done, affirming, that 
 for them to refute those doctrines was impossible, as long as IIuss 
 refused to lay before them in a written form, as they had requested 
 him to do, what he had to object against the two bulls.s When Huss 
 
 * We cite the unjirinted articles from of the faculty : "Behold a dcsij^^n of these 
 tlie Latin ori;;inal j)ublished by Palacky. doctors similar to that of those priests and 
 Palacky III, 1, p. 282. Pharisees; and both cases resulted in the 
 
 ' He protests a^^ainst their arrogance in same way. For neither did the former 
 
 calling themselves the alma et venerabilis nor the latter secure the peace which they 
 
 facultas theologica. and prefers to desig- sought, but were in more trouble than 
 
 natc them as the octo doctores, remarking before. And, rightly ; for the Truth did 
 
 in his tract against Stanislaus : Est autem not come to bring peace upon the earth 
 
 ilia faculta.s theologica, quae aciem contra but a sword : and never ought we to be 
 
 nos dirigit, magistrorum theologiae octo- frightened away from the truth by fear of 
 
 narius. Hesp. ad scr. Stanisl. a Znoyma, rej)roach from the world or from the doc- 
 
 opp. L fol 26.5, 1 . tors." Ibid. 
 
 "^ Quod certi praedicatorcs. propter quos, * Quod non stat per magistros theolo- 
 
 iit timetur, insnltus et discordiae et dissen- giae, quod nihil scribitur et non est scrip- 
 
 sioncs sunt cxoitae in pojjulo, cessent a turn contra dicta M. Joannis IIus de bullis 
 
 praedicatione. Et adducunt in fine pro papae, quia saepius requisitus, dictorura 
 
 causa: Et speratur. quod per hoc fict pax suorum non dedit copiam, nee hucusque 
 
 in populo et insultus conquiescent. Kesp. dare voluit magistris supradictis. — So the 
 
 ad scr. Stanislai, opp. I, fol. 266, 2. words run in a manuscript copy cited bj 
 
 * lloss remarks concerning this design Palacky, III, 1, p. 281. 
 
MICHAEL DE CAUSIS. 293 
 
 was now summoned to appear with his opponents before the king's 
 privy council, in Zebrak, he first appealed to the words of Christ 
 before the High Priest, (John 18 : 20,) and applying tliem to his 
 case, remarked : " I have spoken openly, and taught in the schools, 
 and in the temple in Bethlehem, where masters, bachelors, students, 
 and multitudes of the common people congregate, and nothing have 
 I spoken in secret, by which I could be seeking to draw men away 
 from the truth." At the same time he declared that he was ready 
 to comply with the demand of those doctors, provided that, as he 
 bound himself to suffer at the stake, in case he could be convicted 
 of holding any erroneous doctrine, the eight doctors would also on 
 their fart collectively bind themselves to suffer in the same way on 
 the same condition. They requested time for deliberation and with- 
 drew ; then they came forward and said, that one of them would bind 
 himself by this pledge for all. To this, however, Huss would not 
 consent, but declared, as they were all combined together against 
 him, and he stood opposed to them without associates, this would not 
 be fair.i Finding that the two parties would never be able to agree 
 in settling the preliminary arrangements, the privy council dissolved 
 the meeting, having first admonished both that they should try to 
 make up the matter between themselves "^ — an admonition which, in 
 their present state of exasperated feehng, would pass unheeded, and 
 which was intended, perhaps, simply to intimate that the council would 
 have nothing more to do with the business. 
 
 The consequences which had followed in the train of the dispute 
 about indulgences, could easily be taken advantage of to represent Huss, 
 in Rome, as a dangerous man, hostile to the papacy. His enemies at 
 home found a worthy instrument to play their first cards at the Roman 
 court, in Michael of Deutschbrod, formerly a parish priest, commonly 
 known as Michael de Causis, parochial priest to St. Adalbert's church in 
 the New City in Prague. This man, more interested about reforms in 
 mining than reforms in the church, had left his charge and entered the 
 service of the king to carry out a project for the improvement of mining by 
 some new method of exploring veins of gold. The king, induced by certain 
 representations he had laid before him, gave him a sum of money to be 
 expended on this object. But failing to accomplish what he had prom- 
 ised about improvements in mining, he absconded with a part of the 
 money, getting still more from the enemies of Huss, to assist them in 
 carrying out their designs against the latter by bribery, an all-powerful 
 agent with the creaturesof that monster Pope John, though hardly needed 
 to secure the ruin of a man who had shown himself so hostile as Huss had 
 done to the Roman papacy. Before the pope was yet informed of all that 
 had transpired in Prague, he had taken the case of Huss out of the 
 hands of Cardinal Brancas, to whom it had last been committed, and 
 given it over to another cardinal, Peter de St. Angelo, charging him 
 to employ the severest measures against the recusant. Upon this, the 
 
 1 Refut. script! octo doct., opp. I, fol. ^ Concordetis pulchre invicem. Ibid. 
 292, 2. 
 
 25* 
 
294 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 procurators of IIuss appealed to a future general council, and were im 
 mediately placed under arrest. The friend of IIuss, Master Jesenic, 
 made his escape and got back to Prague. The Cardinal now pro- 
 nounced sentence of excommunication on Huss, in the most terrible 
 formulas. If he persisted twenty days in his disobedience to the pope, 
 the ban was to be proclaimed against him in all the churches, on Sun- 
 days and festival days, with the ringing of all the bells and the extin- 
 guishing of all the tapers, and the same punishment should be ex- 
 tended to all who kept company with him. The interdict should be laid 
 on every place that harbored him. By a second ordinance of the pope, 
 the people of Prague were called upon to seize the person of Huss, and 
 deliver him up to the archbishop of Prague, or to the bishop of Lei- 
 tomysl, or to condemn and burn him according to the laws. Beth- 
 lehem chapel was to be destroyed from its foundation, that the 
 heretics might no longer nestle t'here.i King Wenceslaus offered no 
 resistance to the proclamation of these papal ordinances ; at the same 
 time he did nothing to promote their execution. The party opposed to 
 Huss would have been eager therefore to carry the whole into eftect, had 
 they been powerful enough to do so. With the concurrence of the senators 
 in the Old City of Prague, the majority of whom were still Germans 
 and therefore opponents of IIuss, many citizens, who were also Germans, 
 assembled at the consecration festival of the church of Prague, Oct. 2, 
 under Bemhard Chotek a Bohemian as their leader, for the purpose of 
 dispersing the congregation in Bethlehem chapel and getting possession 
 of the person of IIuss. But the firm resolution with which they were 
 met by the congregation who gathered around Huss, induced them to 
 abandon their plan. They returned back to the senate house, where it 
 was resolved at least to carry into execution the pope's command to 
 destroy Bethlehem chapel. But when this resolution came to be known, 
 such violent commotions arose, that it was found necessary to abandon 
 this project also. The party of Huss did not allow itself to be intimi- 
 dated by the pope's bull of excommunication. His procurator, Master 
 Jesenic, to whom the pope's bull was extended, published on the 18th 
 of December of this year, at the university of Prague, an argument 
 which is still preserved, in which he undertook to demonstrate the in- 
 validity of everything that had been done in the process against Huss. 
 Huss himself could not, consistently with his own principles as they 
 have been explained, attribute any significance to an unjust excommu- 
 nication. He caused to be engraved on the walls of Bethlehem chapel 
 a few words, showing the invalidity of such an excommunication, to 
 which he several times refers ; and finally, when no other earthly 
 remedy was left him, he appealed from the venality of the court of Home 
 to the one incorruptible, just, and infallible judge, Jesus Christ. Already, 
 in his tract against Stephen Paletz, he expresses himself on this subject 
 in the following language. After describing what pains he had taken 
 to obtain justice at the Roman chancery, he says : " But the Roman 
 court, which cares not for the sheep without the wool, would never 
 
 * See the Chron. univ. Prag., cited from the manuscript in Talacky, III, 1, p. 286. 
 
nUSS PLACED UNDER THE BAN AND INTERDICT. 295 
 
 cease asking for money, therefore have I finally appealed from it to the 
 most just Judge and High Priest over all." ^ This appeal he puljlished 
 to his congregation from the pulpit of Bethlehem chapel. It is charac- 
 teristic of the times that this act should also be objected to him as a 
 contemptuous trifling with the jurisdiction of the church, as an inso- 
 lent act of disobedience to the pope, and an overleaping of the regular 
 order of ecclesiastical tribunals. The abbot of Dola says, in his invec- 
 tive against lluss, " Tell me, then, who accepted your appeal ? From 
 whom did you obtain a release from the jurisdiction of the subordinate 
 authorities ? You would not say from the laity, and your daughters 
 the Beguins."^ The parish priests of Prague, however, paid no re- 
 gard to all this, but oiily obeyed the pope ; a course, too, which per- 
 fectly fell in with their own passions and interests. From all the pulpits 
 they published the ban against Huss ; they strictly observed the in- 
 terdict ; no sacraments were administered ; no ecclesiastical burial was 
 permitted. Such a state of things would, as ever, provoke the most 
 violent disturbances among the people. The king himself, therefore, 
 was urgent with Huss that, to preserve peace, he should leave Prague 
 for a time. Archbishop Albic did not feel able to sustain the conflicts 
 at Prague ; nor did such kind of activity suit his love of repose. At 
 the close of the year 1412 he laid down his office, and Conrad of Vechta, 
 bishop of Olmutz, a Westphalian, a zealous advocate of the hierarchy, 
 and more inclined to severe measures in support of it than his prede- 
 cessor, obtained, first under the name of niinlsfrator, the administra- 
 tion of the archbishopric of Prague, till finally, after long protracted ne- 
 gotiations with the Roman court, he became, in July, 1413, archbishop 
 in the full sense. 
 
 By the removal of Huss from Prague, quiet was by no means re- 
 stored in Bohemia. His principles still continued to operate among his 
 important party at Prague. There was a sharp opposition between the 
 two parties, the Hussites and the church party. King Wenzel thought 
 it wrong to allow the matter, Avhich continually grew more serious, and 
 involved in its train important pohtical consequences, to go on thus any 
 lono"er. The college of the ancient nobles of the land had already 
 assembled before the Christmas of 1412, for the purpose of advising 
 about the restoration of peace and the rescue of the good name of the 
 Bohemian people in foreign lands. The assembling of a national synod 
 for this purpose, before which the leaders of the two parties should 
 appear, Avas resolved upon. At first the little city Bohmisch-Brod, 
 which belonged to the archbishop of Prague, was selected for the place 
 of meeting, since it was thought that the appearance of Huss in this 
 small city, notwithstanding the ban under which he lay and the inter- 
 dict on his place of residence, would create little or no disturbance. 
 Here the proposals of the two parties were to be investigated. On the 
 one side were the Prague theological faculty of the eight doctors, at 
 whose head were Stephen of Paletz and Stanislaus of Znaim, with 
 
 * 0pp. I, fol. 256, 1. ras sive apostolos? Nonne a laicis et filia- 
 
 ' Die ergo quaeso, qnis detulxt tuae ap- bus tuis beginis 1 Dial, volat. Fez, IV. 2, 
 pelktioni 1 a quo petiisti dimissorias lite- pag. 492. 
 
296 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 archbishop John the Iron of Leitom^^sl ; on the other side, John Huss. 
 But in the memorials drawn up by the two parties, nothing appeared but 
 the most diametrical opposition of principles. The theological faculty traced 
 all the schism to the defending of the forty-five erroneous doctrines of 
 Wicklif, and insisted that the condemnation of them should be rigorously 
 observed, and that the decision of the church of Rome should be submit- 
 ted to in every point. The church in their view was the pope as head, 
 and the college of cardinals as the body. Errors they found, especially 
 in the widely-spread doctrines about the power of the keys being vested 
 in the church ; errors concerning the hierarchy ; concerning the seven 
 sacraments ; concerning the veneration of relics ; and concerning in- 
 dulgence. They traced all these errors to one cause, that the party 
 admitted no other authority than the sacred Scriptures, explained in 
 their own sense and in contrariety with the doctrine of the church and 
 of entire Christendom. They regarded themselves, on the other hand, 
 as the people, who alone were in possession of the truth, inasmuch as 
 thev a<i;reed with the doctrine of the Roman church and of entire Chris- 
 tendom. They required in all matters in themselves indifferent, among 
 which were to be reckoned the late ordinances of the pope and the 
 process against Huss, unconditional submission to the Roman church. 
 The disobedience of Huss and his party to the commands of their supe- 
 riors passed, with them, for the greatest crime. The interdict should 
 be strictly observed ; the order forbidding Huss to preach, should re- 
 main in full force. They maintained that, since the proceedings against 
 Huss had been accepted by the collective body of the clergy of Prague, 
 and they had submitted to them, therefore all should do the same, 
 especially as they related only to things in themselves indifferent, for- 
 bade nothing good^ and commanded nothing ivrong ; and it was not 
 the business of the clergy of Prague to judge whether the ban pro- 
 nounced on John Huss was a just or an unjust one. Severe punish- 
 ment for publicly holding forth any of those things which they from 
 their particular point of view called heresy, was required by them. 
 Their proposals for peace, therefore, looked to nothing else than a total 
 suppression of the other party and the triumph of their own. Huss, on the 
 other hand, began by laying down the principle, that the sacred Scrip- 
 tures alone should pass as a final, authority ; no obedience could be re- 
 quired to that which was at variance with their teaching. He said, in 
 answer to the challenge of obedience to the interdict and ban : " It 
 were the same as to ' argue that, because the judgment pronouncing 
 Christ a traitor, an evil doer, and worthy of death, was approved by 
 the collective body of the priests in Jerusalem, therefore that judgment 
 must be acquiesced in."i Looking at the matter from this point of 
 view, he was conscious of no heresy himself, nor could he see any 
 ground for asserting that heresies existed in Bohemia. He demanded, 
 therefore, that they should return back to the earlier compact concluded 
 under archbishop Zbynek. He declared that he was ready to clear him- 
 self from the charge of heresy against any man, or else suffer at the 
 
 » 0pp. I, fol. 247, 2. 
 
SYNOD OF PRAGUE, A. D. 1413. 297 
 
 stake, provided his accusers would also bind themselves under the same 
 conditions. Every man who took it upon himself to accuse another of 
 heresy, should he required to come forward and take this pledge. 
 But if none could be found that were able to do so, then it should be 
 proclaimed anew that heresy did not exist in Bohemia. The hierar- 
 chical party would naturally look upon all this as a mere shift to avoid 
 the necessity of submittin<^ to the church, and of giving up the defence 
 of heresy. Archbishop John the Iron, of Leitomysl, approved the 
 propositions of the other party, and declared strongly against those of 
 the party of Huss. He advised that all writings in the vulgar language 
 of Bohemia, relating to religious subjects, writings that had contributed 
 in a special manner to the spread of heresy, should be condemned, and 
 the reading of them forbidden.^ Where there was such contrariety in 
 principles, as we here see manifested, it is evident that all attempts at 
 compromise would necessarily prove idle, or only terminate in making 
 the breach still wider. These transactions afforded Huss a good op- 
 portunity for more fully expounding and defending, in the tracts which 
 he wrote in confutation of the propositions above stated, of the arrogant 
 pretensions clearly avowed therein by the other party, and of the accu- 
 sations brought against him and his friends, the principles which had 
 guided him in these disputes, and which by occasion of these disputes 
 became more distinctly evolved to his own consciousness. We shall 
 state them more fully in the next section, where we shall recur to them 
 for the purpose of a more distinct exposition of the doctrines and prin- 
 ciples of Huss, and of their bearing on the aims and tendencies of the 
 dominant party. The synod above mentioned was not held, as at first 
 intended, at Bohmisch-Brod, but in Prague itself, on the 6th of Febru- 
 ary, 1413. Huss therefore could not be present. His place was 
 represented by his advocate, Master John of Jesenic. Before this 
 synod were laid the propositions of the two parties. And here it should 
 be mentioned, that one of the most zealous friends of Huss, Master 
 Jacobellus of Mies, submitted a resolution to this effect : that if the 
 matter now in question related to the restoration of peace, it should 
 first be settled what peace was meant, whether peace with the world, 
 or with G-od ; the latter depended on keeping the divine command- 
 ments. The origin of the strife was this : that the attempts of some 
 to bring back that peace of God met with such unholy and violent re- 
 sistance on the part of others. Yet the peace of the world without 
 christian and divine peace, would be as unstable as it was worthless. 
 Let the king but give his thoughts to the latter first, and the other 
 "would follow of itself.2 The result of this synod was such as might 
 be expected in a case where the direct contrariety of the propositions 
 offered rendered compromise impossible. It broke up without having 
 accomplished anything. But the king, who looked at nothing but the 
 interests of his government, and therefore desired nothing but a peace- 
 ful compromise, tried yet another expedient. He appointed a committee 
 
 ' See the documents in Cochloeus, p. ^ Palacky, III, 1, p. 293. 
 29 sq., and Palacky, III, 1, p. 289 ff. . 
 
298 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 composed of four members : the archbishop Albic, the Wysehrad dean 
 Jacob, the provost of All-Saints Master Zdenek of Labaiin, and the 
 rector of the university Master Christann of Prachatic' This commit- 
 tee was empowered to take every measure necessary for the restoration 
 of concord and tranquillity. They carried it so far as to oblige the two 
 parties to bind themselves under the penalty of a pecuniary forfeit and 
 of banishment from the country, to abide by the decision of this com- 
 mittee. But the same reasons which had operated to defeat the pur- 
 pose of the synod, would operate with equal force against this experi- 
 ment also. No sooner did they proceed to reduce to form the first 
 proposition, expressing the agreement of the two parties with the faith 
 of the church on the matter of the holy sacraments and the authority 
 of the church, than a dispute arose out of this, namely, that Paletz, 
 who with his friends did not consider themselves as a party standing 
 over against the others, but as defending the cause of the church 
 against a party standing opposed to that cause, thought he could not 
 concede, that he and his were also to be called a pars, a mere party. 
 He then directly proceeded to lay down his definition of the church, a de- 
 finition which the other party would not admit; against which indeed they 
 had always protested, as is evident from the writings of Huss ; .a defi- 
 nition by admitting which the party of Huss would have surrendered 
 all their principles ; namely, that by the church is to be understood 
 the body of cardinals under the pope as their head. Master John of 
 Jesenic, who represented the party of Huss, finally yielded, but with 
 the qualifying clause that he and his party accepted the decisions of 
 the church as every faithful Christian ought to accept and understand 
 them. Now by this clause the definition, chosen with a purpose by the 
 other party, was indeed, of itself, rendered impotent ; for, under the 
 phrase, ' such acceptation as every believing Christian is bound to give,' 
 was meant to be understood, by those from whom this clause proceeded, 
 that everything was excluded thereby which might stand at variance 
 with their principle that the sacred Scriptures are the sole determining 
 rule of faith. The commission, who had no other interest in view than 
 that of securing an agreement, and who were ready to welcome any 
 terms of agreement however ambiguously expressed, would be satisfied 
 with this. But looking upon the thing from their own point of view, the 
 other party could not be blamed when they were led, by the same in- 
 terest which had induced them to propose their narrow definition of the 
 church, to protest against a clause by which their whole object would 
 be defeated. Stanislaus of Znaim and Stephen Paletz declared that 
 this was only a shift, a pretext, under which to conceal discord and 
 disobedience. And in this, judged according to their own point of 
 view, they were right. For two days they vainly disputed on this 
 point. On the third, Paletz and the other doctors who had protested, 
 wholly absented themselves, accusing the Commission of weakness and 
 partiality. King Wenceslaus now looked upon the Ibur members of the 
 theological faculty, who by their protest had hindered the compromise, 
 
 » The same, p. 294. 
 
COMMITTEE FOR SETTLEMENT OF TERMS OF AGREEMENT. 299 
 
 as the promoters of schism, being unfoitliful to the pledge under which 
 they had engaged to submit to the decision of the committee ; and he 
 deprived them of their places and banished them from the country. Thus 
 fell the party which regarded itself as exclusively the party of the 
 church. Another defeat awaited it. In the senate of Prague the Ger- 
 man element had hitherto had tlie ascendancy ; and it was in fact this 
 element chiefly which resisted, in a decided manner, every tendency to 
 reform ; and hence those measures adopted* by the senate against the 
 cause of Huss, of which we have spoken before. But King Wenzel 
 was now induced so to alter the relation, that out of the two races, Bo- 
 hemians and Germans, all the nine members should be chosen into the 
 senate by the king. At the same time a German, who had hitherto 
 been a leader among the opponents of Huss, the senator John Oertel 
 was, for some unknown reason, executed. Thus another victory, if it 
 might be called such, was gained by the Hussite party. But the 
 hatred of the hierarchical party in Bohemia towards the Hussites would 
 only be fanned, by such events, to more violent flame, and its organs 
 subsequently obtained, by the concatenation of greater events in the 
 progress of church development, an opportunity to exercise their re- 
 venge. Stanislaus of Znaim died, it is true, soon afterwards ; but Pa- 
 letz had the satisfaction to appear as the fiercest accuser of Huss at 
 the council of Constance. We now return back to the personal history 
 of Huss. 
 
 He had in the meantime retreated to castles belonging to his 
 friends ; and, while the seed scattered by him in Prague was pro- 
 ducing its fruits, he was enabled to prosecute at greater leisure the 
 defence of his principles by writings. He spent the first part of the 
 time chiefly at the castle, Kozi-hradek, which belonged to the lords of 
 Austie. Here he wrote the most important of all his works, — the 
 one chiefly appealed to in. conducting the process against him which 
 brought him to the stake. This was his book De ecdesia, and the 
 controversial writings therewith connected, tracts directed against the 
 theological faculty in Prague, against Stephen Paletz, and against 
 Stanislaus of Znaim, — writings, of which we have already availed 
 ourselves in tracing the thread of the author's history, in explaining 
 his principles and describing his labors, although in point of chrono- 
 logy they presuppose the work De ecdesia. It is characteristic of 
 Huss, that precisely at this critical juncture, where the contest threat- 
 ened to be most dangerous, he should unfold in this work De ecclesia, 
 without regard to consequences, those doctrines which would inevit- 
 ably most contribute to fix upon him the stigma of heresy. Accord- 
 ingly, Cardinal D'Ailly remarked of this work, before the council of 
 Constance, that through an endless multitude of arguments it attacked 
 the papal authority and the plenitude of the papal power, as much as 
 the Koran did the Cathohc faith. i Huss in this work traces the orimn 
 
 o 
 
 * Qui quidem liber per infinita argn- Alcoranus impugnat catholicam fidem. 
 menta ita impugnat auctoritatem papa- D'Ailly, de necessitate reformationis, in 
 lem et ejus plenitudinem potestatis, sicut Works* of Gerson, Tom. II, p. 901. 
 
800 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 of the whole dispute to his attacks of the secularized clergy. He 
 distributes the entire body of the clergy into two classes : the clerus 
 CJiristl and the clenis Antichristi. " We must regard the clerical body 
 — he says — as made up of two sects : the clergy of Christ and those 
 of Antichrist. The Christian clergy lean on Christ as their leader, 
 and on his laws. The clergy of Antichrist lean for the most part or 
 wholly on human laws and tlie laws of Antichrist ; and yet pretend to 
 be the clergy of Christ and of the church, so as to seduce the people 
 by a more cunning hypocrisy. And two sects which are so directly 
 opposed, must necessarily be governed by two opposite heads with 
 their corresponding laws." ^ lie says : " The priests of Christ preach- 
 ed against the vices of a corrupt clergy. Hence arose the schism, 
 and hence that clergy sought to suppress such preaching." He says, 
 " how can there be anything more senseless than a clergy giving them- 
 selves up to the dross of this world, and making a mockery of the life 
 and teaching of Christ ? For, so exceedingly corrupt are the clergy 
 already, that they hate those who frequently preach, and frequently 
 mention the Lord Jesus Christ ; and, if a man ventures to quote 
 Christ for himself, they say with scorn and bitterness, Art thou Christ ? 
 And, after the manner of the Pharisees, they trouble and excommuni- 
 cate those who acknowledge Christ. It was because I preached Christ 
 and the gospel, and exposed Antichrist, anxious that the clergy should 
 live according to the law of Christ, that the prelates first, with Arch- 
 bishop Zbynek, contrived to get a bull from Pope Alexander V, to 
 prohibit preaching in the chapels before the people, from which bull I 
 had appealed : but I was never able to get a hearing. Therefore, on 
 on good and reasonable grounds, I did not appear when I was cited. 
 Therefore, by the instrumentality of Michael de Causis, they got me 
 placed under the ban, when a compromise had already been effected ; 
 and, finally, they contrived to obtain an interdict, by which they op- 
 press the Christian people for no fault of their own." In accounting 
 for his non-appearance in Rome he explains himself further, as fol- 
 lows : " What reason had I for obedience — a man summoned from a 
 distance of 1200 miles. What reason that I, a man unknown to the 
 pope, informed against by my enemies, should be so very solicitous and 
 put myself to such extraordinary pains, to pass through the midst of 
 my enemies, and place myself before judges and witnesses, who are 
 my enemies, that I should use up the property of the poor to defray 
 the enormous expenses, or if I could not meet the expenses, miserably 
 perish from hunger and thirst ? And what was to be gained by my 
 appearance ? One consequence certainly would be neglect of the 
 work which God gave me to do, for my own salvation and that of 
 others. There I should be learning, not how to believe, but how to 
 conduct a process, a thing not permitted to a servant of God. There 
 I should be robbed by tlie consistory of cardinals — made luke- 
 warm in holy living ; be betrayed into impatience by oppression ; and, 
 if I had nothing to give, must be condemned, let my cause be ever so 
 
 ' De ecclesia, opp. I, fol. 226, 1. 
 
THE WOUK OF HUSS ENTITLED " DE ECCLESIA." 301 
 
 good ; and, what is still worse, I should be compelled to worship the 
 pope on my bended knees." Appealing to the words inscribed on the 
 walls at Bethlehem,! he mentions, as a reason why the pretended ban 
 could not aflfect him, that his judges and witnesses at Rome were his 
 enemies, and, in particular, that his judge was a party concerned in 
 the cause. '2 "It is — says he — a great distance ; — everywhere on 
 this journey I should be surrounded by my enemies the Germans.^ I 
 see no advantage to be gained by my appearance ; but the contrary ; 
 
 — I must neglect my people in the word of God. I hope Christ has 
 warned against any such peril, when he says : Lo, I send you as 
 sheep in the midst of wolves ; be ye, therefore, wise as serpents and 
 harmless as doves, (Matt. 10: IG). With regard to the interdict, 
 he speaks of that as an unchristian thing in itself. He traces its origin 
 to the twelfth century, under Pope Hadrian IV, who, for some ill- 
 treatment or other of a cardinal, laid an interdict on the place where 
 Arnold of Brescia resided — which, to be sure, is not strictly correct 
 
 — and he remarks : " 0, how patient was that pope ; but yet not like 
 Christ, and the apostles Peter, Paul, and Andrew." " Perhaps — says 
 he afterwards — that language of the Roman court is founded upon 
 the exhortation : We ought always to pray and not faint, (Luke 
 18 : 1) ; or, on the words : Praise the Lord, all ye people, (Ps. 
 117 : 1). But what would the people say who hold such language, 
 should it happen that John Huss arrives at the city of the heavenly 
 Jerusalem, where cherubim and seraphim cease not daily to cry with 
 one voice : " Holy is our God ? Will these on account of the papal 
 bull cease to praise God, so that Christ, the true intercessor with God, 
 must cease to intercede in behalf of the faithful his members ? " 
 
 Though Huss was very far from harboring any intention to found a 
 new church, or to renounce the church of that time, yet the principle 
 from which such a renunciation would necessarily follow, was, it must 
 be owned, sharply expressed and clearly unfolded in this book and the 
 controversial tracts which, as we have said, were . connected with it. 
 
 * Et si non vis credere, disce in Bethle- tate exponenda (quae Veritas Christus est), 
 
 hem in pariete, ibi reperies. quomodo justo qui etiam, ubi non est timor, times mor- 
 
 non noc'Ct excommunicatio, sed proficit, tem ? Numquid commortuus fuit in te 
 
 et quare debet etiam Justus tiniere excom- sermo dominicus : Nolitc timere eos, qui 
 
 municationem injustam praelaticara vel corpus oocidunt ; animam autem non pos- 
 
 Pilaticain. Fol. 249, 2. sunt occidere ? Numquid legisti : Quis 
 
 ^ Judicera principaliter tangit causa, accusabit adversus electos dei ? Deus, 
 
 Fol. 244, 2. qui justificat; quis est qui condemnet ? 
 
 ^ The naive manner in which the abbot Ad curiam citatus debuisti potius humili- 
 
 of Dohi labors to refute these arguments, ter parere et cum apostolo dicere : Si deus 
 
 reproaching IIuss with cowardice, exhort- pro nobis, quis contra nos 1 Ecce deus 
 
 ing him to trust in God and fear nothing, proprio tilio suo non pepercit, sed pro no- 
 
 and holding up to him the example of bis omnibus tradidit ilium, etiam judican- 
 
 Christ when he appeared before Pilate, is dum impio judici Pilato, numquid tu ma- 
 
 quite characteristic. We will quote a spe- jor es Christo ? Christus pro nobis non 
 
 cimen of his line logic : Ecce cum nee- refugit judicari ab iniquo judice : et tu 
 
 dum audieris proelia et seditiones, jam contemnis, imo condemnas pro expurgan- 
 
 contra Christi exhortationem stolide ter- dis tuis propriis peccatis judicium summi 
 
 reris. Et ubi sermo sapientiae : Pro jus- pontificis, vicarii Jesu Cliristi ? Dial, vo- 
 
 titia certa usque ad mortem ? Et tu dices lat. Pez, IV, 2, pag. 465 et 466. 
 te intrepidum praedicatorem esse pro veri- 
 
 VOL. V. 26 
 
302 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 From the direct unmedlatecl reference of the Christian consciousness 
 to the Saviour, such as "we find in these works, results already a new 
 and more spiritual conception of the church, another conception of the 
 necessity of the church unit}^ opposed to the theory of a necessary 
 visihle head. Already, we find, in its ;2;erm, the distinction of visible 
 and invisible church. In reference to this last, it is onlv necessary to 
 remark, that IIuss, takin;^ his start from the strict Aui:;ustinian system 
 — tliough his predominant practical bent prevents him from using 
 such hard expressions, amounting to a denial of all freedom, as are to 
 be found in Wicklif — must nevertheless define the church, so far as 
 it corresponds to its true idea, as the community of the elect; and, 
 though with Augustin, he gives prominence to the notion of a living 
 faith, yet he also, with Augustin and the entire western church, ap- 
 prehended the notion of justification after a wholly subjective manner ; 
 and hence by him, too, it was argued, that no man could without a 
 special revelation, have any certainty on the point, whether or not, he 
 belonged to the number of the predestinated or the elect. Thus 
 in adverting to Christ's words : " Where two or three are gathered 
 together in my name, I am in the midst of them," he says : Tliere^ 
 then, would be a true particular church ; and, accordingly, where 
 three or four are assembled, up to the whole number of the elect ; 
 and, in this sense, the term church was often used in the New Testa- 
 ment. " And thus — says he — all the righteous who now, in the 
 archbishopric of Prague, live under the reign of Christ, and in parti- 
 cular the elect, are the true church of Prague." But, the one Cath- 
 olic Lluirch is the universitas praedestinatorum, i. e., the praedesti- 
 nate of all times. He then distinguishes the church in the proper 
 and in the improper sense, ve7'e et nuncupative. The former is the 
 community of the elect, in the second sense also, the congregatio prae- 
 scitorum. Then the church is denominated, in a mixed sense, the 
 community of the j9?'«e8Citiandof the praedestinati at once ; so that, in 
 this case, one part is the church in the p>roper^ the other in the impro- 
 per sense. That would be the visible church, therefore, in which, as 
 we should say, those who partake of the essence of the invisible church, 
 and those who belong merely to the visible, are commingled. But, 
 then, according to his above described doctrine, no one can have any 
 certainty on the point, whether he belongs or not to the number of the 
 elect ; and hence neither can any one be certain that he is a member 
 of the true church. " It would — says he — be the height of arro- 
 gance for any man fearlessly to assert, without a special revelation, 
 that he is a member of that holy church ; for none but the praedesti- 
 nate is a member without spot or wrinkle of that church. Therefore 
 — says he — we may well be amazed to see with what effrontery those 
 who are most devoted to the world, who live most worldly and abom- 
 inable lives, most distant from the walk with Christ, and who are most 
 unfruitful in performing the counsels and commandments of Christ, 
 with what fearless effrontery such persons assert, that they are heads, 
 or eminent members of the church, which is His bride." When he 
 wrote this, lluss may have had in his thoughts Pope John XXIII, of 
 
THE WORK OF UUSS ENTITLED DE ECCLESIA. 303 
 
 "whose vices he had doubtless already heard. Hence, too, he distin- 
 guishes those who may at a certain time, by the indications of their 
 life in righteousness, seem to be members of the church, and wlio yet, 
 as they do not belong to the number of the praedestinate, are not 
 members of the mystical body of Christ.' Paletz had offered it as an 
 objection to the party of IIuss, that they talked of four parties in the 
 church, the parties of the tbree popes, and a fourth neutral party. 
 This led IIuss to remark : Paletz did not understand, then, that the 
 universal church of the faithful, which is in the whole world where 
 believers are to be found, the church which is engaged in the warfare 
 and scattered, is divided not merely into three parts, but into very 
 many parts, all which went to constitute the entirety of the church. 
 Had not, then, this church its members, and its sons in Spain under 
 Benedict, and in Apulia and on the Rhine under Gregory, and in 
 Bohemia under John XXIII ? God forbid that the Christian faith 
 should be extinguished in the simple faithful, and that the grace of 
 baptism should be annihilated in baptized children on account of the 
 three beasts that are quarrelling with one another for their dignity, 
 their pomp, and their avarice.^ — " Let him retreat within himself — 
 says he of Paletz — and sing that song of the church : The holy 
 church, throughout all the world, doth acknowledge thee." And pray 
 in the song of the mass : " To thee we offer the gifts for thy holy 
 Catholic church which thou wilt preserve and guide, scattered through- 
 out all the world. When he sings and prays thus, and meditates on 
 Ghrist's gospel with the sayings of Augustin, Jerome, and other saints, 
 should he not be surprised rather to learn that the church of Christ is 
 divided into three parts?" He adverts here also to the words of 
 Christ, that where two or three were assembled in his name, he was in 
 the midst of them. — He gives special prominence to the truth that 
 Christ alone is the all-sufficient head of the church ; that the church 
 needs no other, and that therein consists its unity. After having cited 
 Ephesians 1 : 21, to show that Christ is the sole head, he argues that 
 if a Christian in connection with Christ were the head of the universal 
 church, we should have to concede, that such a Christian was Christ 
 himself, or that Christ was subordinate to him, and only a member of 
 the church. Therefore the apostles had never thought of being aught 
 else than servants of that head, and humble ministers of the church 
 his bride ; but no one of them had ever thought of excepting himself 
 and asserting that he was head or bridegroom of the church. " Christ 
 
 ^ Qui nude secundum praesentem justi- Numquid non habet sua membra et suos 
 
 tiam et tali tor sunt praesciti de ecclesia filios in Hispania sub Benedicto, et in 
 
 pro tempore quo sunt in gratia. Ilia au- Apulia et in Rheno sub Gregorio, et in 
 
 tem ecclesia non est corpus Christi mysti- Bohemia sub Joanne XXIIl ? Absit. 
 
 cum. See the passages cited thus far in quod sit exstincta Christi tides in simpli- 
 
 De ecclesia, opp. I, fob 196-206. cibus Christi tidelibus et in baptisatis par- 
 
 ' Non cognoscit iste fictor, quod univer- vulis sit exstincta papalis (doubtless we 
 
 salis ecclesia Christi fidelium. militans per should read baptismalis) gratia propter tres 
 
 totum orbem, ubi sunt Christi fideles, est bestias, pro dignitate et fastu et avaritia 
 
 diffusa, quae non solum tripartitur, imo contendentes. Resp. ad scr. Paletz, opp. 
 
 multipliciter, ultra dividitur in partes ip- I fob 260, 2. 
 sam universalem ecclesiam intcgrantes. 
 
304 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 — says he — is the all-sufficient head of the church ; as he proved, 
 during 300 years of the existence of the church and still longer, ia 
 which time the church was most prosperous and happy." And the law 
 of Christ was the most effectual to decide and determine ecclesiastical 
 affiiirs, since God himself had given it for this purpose. " For Christ 
 never allows the case to occur in which the church can fail to he 
 governed by his law, since pious priests bring that law before the 
 people to be applied according to the rules of holy teachers, — rules 
 which they have made known under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, 
 as is evident from the examples of an Augustin, a Gregory, an Am- 
 brosius, who, after the apostles, were given to the church to be her 
 teachers." Hence it was manifest, that an Augustin had benefited the 
 church more than many popes had done ; and in instruction had done 
 more perhaps than all the cardinals from their first creation down to 
 the present.' Following out certain maxims of Augustin,^ he declares 
 that Christ himself was the rock which Peter professed, and on which 
 Christ founded the church, who would therefore come forth triumph- 
 ant out of all her conflicts.^ He says, the pope and the cardinals 
 might be the most eminent portion of the church in respect of dignity, 
 yet only in case . they followed more carefully the pattern of Christ, 
 and laying aside pom.p and the ambition of the primacy, served in a 
 more active and humble manner, their mother the church. But pro- 
 ceeding in the opposite way, they became the abomination of desola- 
 tion, a college opposed to the humble college of the apostles of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ.4 Why should not Christ, who, in the holy supper, 
 grants to believers the privilege of participating in a sacramental and 
 spiritual manner of himself; why should not he be more present to 
 the church, than the pope, who, Hving at a distance of more than 800 
 miles from Bohemia, could not by himself act directly on the feelings 
 and the movements of the faithful in Bohemia, as it was incumbent on 
 the head to do ! It would be enough, then, to say that the pope is a 
 representative of Christ ; and it would be well for him, if he were a 
 faithful servant, predestinated to a participation in the glory of his 
 head — Jesus Christ. Huss asserts that the papacy, by which a visi- 
 ble head was given to the church, derived its origin from the Emperor 
 Constantino ; for, until the gift of Constantino, the pope was but a 
 colleague of the other bishops.^ If the Almighty God could not give 
 other true successors of the apostles than the pope and the cardinals, 
 it would follow, that the power of the emperor, a mere man, by whom 
 the pope and the cardinals were instituted, had set hmits to the power 
 of God .6 Speaking of the sovereignty of Rome conferred on the 
 pope by Louis the pious, he says : " The Apostle Peter, if God pleased, 
 might surely have said to Louis, I accept not what thou ofierest me ; 
 for, when I was bishop of Rome, I forsook all, and desired not to re- 
 ceive the sovereignty of Rome from Nero ; neither did I need it, and 
 
 * De ecclesia, oop. I. fol. 202, 2, and fol. ' Dc eoclesia, opp. I, fol. 210, 1. 
 
 224, 2. ' ■* Ibid. fol. 207, 2. 
 
 ' Which we have cited ia Church Ilis- * Ihid. fol. 224, 2. 
 
 tor)', Vol. ri, p. 1G8. • Ibid. fol. 224, 2 et 225. 
 
THE WORK OF IIUSS DE ECCLESIA. 305 
 
 I see that it is a great injury to my successors ; for it is a hindrance 
 to them, this same honor, in the preaching of the gospel, in \vholesorae 
 prayer in fulfilling the divine commandments and counsels ; and the 
 greater part of them are betrayed by it into pride. Since, then, the 
 Almighty God is able to take away the prerogatives of all those 
 emperors, and to bring back his church once more to the condition in 
 which all the bishops shall be on the same level, as it was before the 
 gift of Constantino, it is evident that he can give others besides the 
 pope and the cardinals to be true successors of the apostles, so as 
 to serve the church as the apostles served it."i He cannot agree with 
 those who required an unconditional obedience to the popes and pre- 
 lates, in relation to things indifferent. " Reason — he says — must 
 be man's guide not only in regard to that wdiich is good in itself, but 
 likewise to things indifferent. As regards that which is good in itself, 
 should a prelate bid his subject give alms while he left his sons to 
 famish, or impose a fast on him which he could not endure, or bid him 
 make many prayers, for confessors are wont to prescribe such oppres- 
 sive things — certainly in such matters not even the pope is to be 
 obeyed ; since a father is more bound to support his sons than to give 
 alms to others ; and he is not bound to take upon himself an in- 
 tolerable burden. And the same holds good also of things indififerent. 
 For, should a pope command me to play on a flute, to build towers, to 
 cut out clothes, or to weave, must not my reason decide for me, that 
 the pope lays on me a senseless command ? Wherefore should I not 
 place my own thought before the pope's dictum ? Nay, should he 
 with all the doctors lay on me any such command, reason would still 
 decide, that their command was a senseless one. If the pope of his 
 own motion determined to confer a bishopric on one whose vicious life 
 and ignorance in the language of the community whom he had to 
 guide, disqualified him for the duty, even with the command that he 
 should accept of such a charge, would the man be obliged to obey him 
 in this ? It is clear that he is by no means obliged to do so. Neither 
 would the people be obliged to accept such a person ; for they would 
 not even make one a tender of swine or of goats, who was not quali- 
 fied to take charge of such animals." And he lays it down as a prin- 
 ciple, that the true disciples of Christ must look at the primitive 
 pattern of Christ Jii7nself, and so far hearken to the prelates, as he 
 prescribed to his flock the law of Christ, that which was conformable 
 to reason and tended to edification. In relation to things indifferent 
 he remarks : to what a condition of slavish servility would Christians 
 be degraded by such a principle ; to what abuse, intolerable to Christ- 
 ian men, would such a principle be hable. The pope in such case 
 might order that no Christian should do anything in the whole range 
 of things indiSerent, which he might not approve ; and so he might 
 commission his satraps to cite any man whom they pleased and make 
 him responsible to their tribunal ; and thus might they torment the 
 people after their own good pleasure, and practise extortions upon 
 
 » Ibid. 
 
 26* 
 
806 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 them, as tliej have done hy their absolutions, reservations, and dis- 
 pensations. And it may be believed they would do it more, did they 
 not fear that the people, seeing through their trick, would rise up in 
 rebellion against them. ''For — says he — alreach/ God glees Uglit 
 to the iieople, that the?/ mm/ not be led astrai/ from the tvays of 
 Christ.''^ The pain which Huss felt in contemplating the worldliness 
 of the church, his earnest longing for its purification, express them- 
 selves in these words of a prayer to Christ: "Almighty Lord, thou 
 who art the way, the truth and the life, thou knowest how few, in 
 these times, walk in thee, how few follow after thee, as the head, in 
 humilitv, poverty, chastity, labor, and patience ! Broad and open lies 
 the way of Satan, and many walk therein. Help thy little flock, that 
 they mav never forsake thee, but follow on through the narrow path, 
 even unto thyself." 2 To this worldly spirit, Huss, too, with others, 
 attributes the long, wearisome schism of the church in those days. 
 "As to the question — saj^s he — whence this devilish schism has 
 arisen, the very blind may know, that it sprung out of the worldly 
 dowry of the church."^ Conceiving the unity of the church in the 
 more free and spiritual manner we have described, Huss was pre- 
 pared also to understand more clearly the multifarious ways of appro- 
 priating Christianity, determined by the various peculiarities of indivi- 
 dual character, and it is a fine remark which he makes on this subject 
 when he says : " Some love Christ more in reference to his divinity, 
 as we suppose to be the case with the evangelist John ; others, more 
 in reference to his humanity, as is thought to be true of Philip ; others, 
 more in reference to his body which is the church, and so in many 
 other relations." 4 Here, then, we find characterized three rpoTroi 
 iraiheia^ three different bents of Christian experience ; — the predomi- 
 nant tendency to the godlike in Christ, the predominant bent to the 
 human, and to his revelation in the church. Huss, in a conference with 
 Paletz, had required a proof from Holy Scripture in support of some- 
 thing the latter had asserted. Paletz and his associates seized upon 
 this to bring home against him the charge, that he recognized merely 
 the Holy Scriptures, but not God, nor the apostles, nor holy teachers, 
 nor the universal church, as judge in the final appeal. To this accu- 
 sation Huss replies: " One thing Paletz must assuredly know, that in 
 the matter of faith we agree neither with him, nor with any of his 
 adherents, except so far as they can sustain themselves on the founda- 
 tion of Sacred Scripture or on reason." s Huss, who showed his 
 Christian freedom in this, that he felt bound to follow the Divine Word 
 and reason independent of all other authority, and in opposition to all 
 other, and who for this reason was accused of pride by those who stood 
 up for a servile obedience to church authority, was, however, very 
 
 * Jam CTiim dcus populiim illuniinat, nc ta est via Satanae, multi vadunt per earn, 
 
 seducatur a viis Christi. ll)id. lol. 24;'), 2. adjuva piisillum prcgem tuuni, ut non te 
 
 ' Omnipotens domine, qui es via, veri- doscrat, sed per viam angustiae finalitcr 
 
 tas et vita, tu nosti, quam pauci in te am- te seciuatur. Il»id. fol. 206 
 bulant istis teniporil)US, pauci te caput ^ Il)id. fol. 2.J0, 2. 
 Buura in humilitate, paupertate, castitate, * Ibid. fol. 212, 2. 
 laboriositatc et paticutia iinitantur. Apcr- * Ibid. fol. 227, 1. 
 
HUSS AGAINST STANISLAUS OF ZNAIM. 307 
 
 far from being inclined to persist obstinately in holding an opinion 
 which he had once expressed. He says : " Often have I allowed myself 
 to be set riglit even by one of my own scholars, when I saw that the 
 reasoiTS were good, and I felt bound to thank him for the correction." i 
 
 In this work we find laid down the four principles of reform which 
 constitute the soul of the whole movement that proceeded from lluss ; the 
 germ and beginning of the four articles subsequently held fast by the 
 more moderate portion of the Hussite party. To wit : in opposition to 
 the charge that the people were led astray by his party, he says — 
 1. It was their endeavor rather to make the christian people one; to 
 bring them into a harmonious unity by the law of Clu'ist ; 2. That anti- 
 christian ordinances should not delude the people, which could not divide 
 them from Christ ; but that the law of Christ in its purity should rule, 
 together with the customs of the people which harmonized with the law 
 of the Lord ; 3. That the clergy should live pure, according to the 
 law of Christ ; should banish pomp, cupidity, and luxury ; 4. That 
 the militant church should consist of the orders instituted by our Lord, 
 namely, the priests of Christ, who faithfully fulfilled his law, the secu- 
 lar nobles, who should compel the rest to observe christian ordinances, 
 and the lower class of people, who should serve both orders according 
 to the law of Christ.^ 
 
 We would join, with what we have taken from the book of Huss on 
 the church, what he said akin to this in the tract already mentioned as 
 having been composed about this time and directed against Stanislaus 
 of Znaim. Had he affirmed that a bad pope, who was a reprobate, could 
 not be head of the church, his adversaries who were glad of a chance 
 to carry spiritual matters over into politics, hoping thus to make the 
 doctrines of Huss appear the more dangerous to secular authority, 
 would have argued from it that the king of Bohemia then, if he were a 
 praescitus, could not be king. And so Huss would have been held up 
 to view as the representative of a radical and revolutionary party. But 
 Huss uniformly declared himself opposed to this method of carrying the. 
 subject over into a wholly different province. Christ, he said, was the 
 head in spiritual things, and governed the church in a far more neces- 
 sary way than the emperor who was head in temporal things. For 
 Christ, who is seated at the right hand of the Father, must necessarily 
 govern the militant church as its head.3 Against the necessity of a 
 visible head, Huss cited the papal female reign of the tenth century, 
 the time of the vacancy in the papal chair.4 Christ can better govern 
 his church, says he, by his true disciples scattered through all the world, 
 without such monsters of supreme heads.5 The theological faculty had 
 called the pope the secure, never-failing and all-sufficient refuge for his 
 church. Against this Huss says: No created being can hold this 
 place. This language can be applied only to Christ. He alone is the 
 
 1 Sicut mihi frequentius acciderat, dum =» Resp. ad scr. Stanislai, opp. I, fol. 
 mandavi et doctus de meliori etiam gra- 277, 1. 
 
 tanter informationem suscipiens discipulo * Ibid. 
 
 obedivi. Ibid. fol. 247, 1. * Ibid. fol. 277, 2. 
 
 2 Ibid. fol. 231, 1. 
 
808 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 secure, unfailing, and all-sufficient refuge for his church, to guide and 
 enlighten it. And he appeals to the ^vords of Christ, ^yithout me je 
 can do nothing (John 15: 5).i What sound views he entertained of the 
 progressive advance of the church as a necessarily free progression, is 
 evidenced b}'' these words : " It injures not the church, but benefits it, 
 that Christ is no longer present to it after a visible manner ; since he 
 himself savs to his disciples and therefore to all their successors (John 
 16: 7), It is good for you that I go away, for if I went not away, the 
 Comforter would not come to you ; but if I go, I will send him unto 
 you." It is evident from this, as the truth itself testifies, that it was a 
 salutarv thin<:^ for the church militant that Christ should ascend from it 
 to heaven, that so his longer protracted bodily and visible presence on 
 earth might not be prejudicial to her. 2 Accordingly he concludes that 
 the church is sufficiently provided for in the invisible guidance, and 
 should need no visible one by which she might be made dependant. 
 Suppose then that the pope who walks visibly among men, were as good 
 a teacher as that promised Spirit of truth, for which one need not to 
 run to Rome or Jerusalem, since he is everywhere present, in that he 
 fills the world. Suppose also that the pope were as secure, unfailing, 
 and all-sufficient a refuge for all the sons of the church as that Holy 
 Spirit, it would follow that you supposed a fourth person in the divine 
 Trinity .3 IIuss sees clearly how the mistaken endeavor to secure unity 
 to the church by externalization, by making it dependant on a visible 
 head, instead of operating as was intended to prevent heresies and di- 
 visions, provoked the contrary and multiplied them. " For — says he 
 — it is evident that the greatest errors and the greatest divisions have 
 arisen by occasion of this head of the church, and that they have gone 
 on multiplying to this day. For before such a head had been instituted 
 by the emperor, the church was constantly adding to her virtues ; but 
 after the appointment of such a head, the evils have continually mount- 
 ed higher ; and there will be no end to all this, until this head, with 
 
 , its body, be brought back to the rule of the apostles." It was not Sara- 
 cens, Greeks, and Jews alone that took umbrage at this ; but since the 
 schism between the popes, there had sprung up such divisions among 
 the people, that few were to be found who agreed together in their 
 walk according to the law of Christ. All true unity must have 
 its foundation in Christ.'* "When the opponents of Huss, following 
 
 * the fashion of their age, resorted to a very arbitrary system of so- 
 called philosophy and false analogies drawn from the organism of the 
 body, to demonstrate the necessity of such an organism as that of the 
 existing hierarchy, confounding together, as was so common in those 
 
 * Ibid. et indcficicns. sod omnino sufficicns, refu- 
 
 ^ Jhid. fol. 269, 1. gium omnibus filiis ecok-siiie, sicut est iste 
 
 ' Tonat ergo doctor papam convcrsan- spiritus sanctus, et dicam, quod posuit 
 
 tern in bumanis ita bonum doctorein, sicut quartam personam in divinis. Ibid. foL 
 
 bonus doctor est iste promissus spiritus 283, 1. 
 
 veritatis. ad qucm non est neces.se llieru- •• Omnem vcro concordiam vcram et 
 
 salem vcl Komam currerc, cum sit ubique sanctam in militante ecdcsia oportet esse 
 
 praescns, replens orbem terrarum. Ponat in Cbristo domino stabilitam. Ibid. foi. 
 
 etiam doctor papam ita securum, ecrtum 279, 1. 
 
HUSS AGAINST STANISLAUS OF ZNAIM. 309 
 
 times, philosophy and theolo,::^/ in a way equally injurious to both, IIuss 
 miiiht justly accuse them of unwarrantably mixing up wordly wisdom 
 ■with revealed truth, and substituting the water of a cistern for that of 
 the living spring.' Of the only necessary and truly uninterrupted 
 agency, in the church, of the Holy Spirit, Iluss says : " This Spirit, in 
 the absense of a visible pope, inspired prophets to predict the future 
 bridegroom of the church, strengthened the apostles to spread the gos- 
 pel of Christ through all the world, led idolaters to the worship of one 
 only God, and ceases not, even until now, to instruct the bride and all 
 her sons, to make them certain of all things and guide them in all things 
 that are necessary for salvation." "^ To show that the church may be 
 governed best by organs ordained and guided by Christ, he says : " As 
 the apostles and the priests of Christ ably conducted the affairs of the 
 church in all things necessary to salvation, before the office of pope had 
 yet been introduced, so they will do it again if it should happen, as it 
 is quite possible it may, that no pope should exist, until the day of judg- 
 ment ; for Christ is able to govern his church, after the best manner, by 
 his faithful presbyters, without a pope." 3 So in pointing out the con- 
 trast between pious priests and the cardinals, he says : " The cardinals, 
 occupied with worldly business, cannot teach and guide, by sermons, in 
 the articles of faith and the precepts of the Lord, the members of the 
 universal church and of our Lord Jesus Christ. But the poor and lowly 
 priests of Christ, who have put away out of their hearts all ambition, 
 and all ungodliness of the world, being themselves guided by the grace 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, teach and guide the sons of the church, 
 quickened by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and give them certainty in 
 the articles of faith and the precepts necessary to salvation." 4 He 
 shows how the church has all that it needs in the guidance of the Holy 
 Spirit, and ought to require nothing else ; nothing else can be a sub- 
 stitute for that. Stanislaus of Znaim had affirmed that the church 
 could not have been left by Christ without a visible head, for it would 
 be leaving her in a condition of too great embarrassment. Huss re- 
 plies : " Far be it from our hearts ever to utter a sentiment so hereti- 
 cal as this. For it directly contradicts the declarations of the gospels. 
 How can the church be embarrassed, when she has the bridegroom with 
 her to the end of the world ; when she has a sure consolation and an 
 infallible promise, the promise of Christ's own word, that if we ask the 
 Father anything in his name, he will give it us ? And, Whatever ye 
 ask of the Bridegroom, he will do. From no pope can she obtain this." s 
 
 * Quis non conciperet ratione discutiens, ejus filios informare, certificare ac dirigere 
 
 quod hoc est cisternam extraneam, prae- in necessariis ad salutem. Ibid. fol. 283, 1. 
 
 ter aquam Christi fodere, philosophiam ^ Sicut apostoli et fideles sacerdotes 
 
 fallaciter cum scriptura sacra commiscere'? domini strenue in necessariis ad salutem 
 
 Ibid. fol. 279, 2. regularunt ecclesiam, antequam papae of- 
 
 ^ Ille ergo spiritus, nullo papa conver- ficium fuerat introductura, sic tacerent, de- 
 
 sante in humanis visibiliter, prophetas ficiente per summe possibile papa, usque 
 
 aspiravit, ut sponsum futurum ecclesiae ad diem judicii ; cum ipse Christus potest 
 
 praecinerent, apostolos confortavit, ut suam ecclesiam optime per suos tideles 
 
 Christi evangelium per mundum vehe- presbyteros regere sine papa. Ibid. fol. 
 
 rent, idolatras ad cultum revocavit, et 283, 2, 
 
 nunc non deficit ipsam sponsam et omnes * Ibid. ' Ibid. 
 
310 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 Huss says of himself : " Relying on Christ, that Witness whom no mul- 
 titude of witnesses can draw away from the truth, whom the Roman 
 court cannot terrify, whom no gift can corrupt and no power overcome, 
 I will confess the gospel truth, so long as he himself gives me grace to 
 do so." • In the time of those earlier proceedings for the restoration 
 of concord, IIuss expressed, in letters addressed to his friends in Prague, 
 his high assurance of faith, his firm resolution never to give up a par- 
 ticle of the truth, never to purchase peace and quiet by any denial of 
 the truth. We find him already with a mind fully made up to die 
 rather than to swerve from strict integritj^ and an honest avowal of his 
 convictions. So he writes to a friend. Master Christann of Prachatic, rec- 
 tor of Prague university : "As to the advice of the faculty, with Christ's 
 help, I would not receive it, if I stood before a stake, which was ready 
 prepared for my execution ; and I hope that death will sooner remove 
 me or the two who have deserted the truth (Stephen Paletz and Stan- 
 islaus of Znaim), either to heaven or to hell, than I shall be induced 
 to adopt their opinions. For I knew them both as men who, in earlier 
 times, truly confessed the truth as it is in Christ ; but, overcome by fear, 
 they have turned to flattering the pope, and to lies." " If — he writes 
 — I cannot make the truth free in all, I will at least not be an enemy 
 to the truth, and will resist to the death all agreement with falsehood. 
 Let the world flow on as the Lord permits it to flow ! A good death 
 is better than a bad life. One ought never to sin throuii^h fear of death. 
 To end this life, by God's grace, is to pass out of misery. The more 
 knowledge of truth one gains, the harder he has to work. He who 
 speaks the truth, breaks his own neck. He who fears death, 
 loses the joy of living. Truth triumphs over all ; he triumphs who 
 dies for the truth ; for no calamity can touch him, if no sin has 
 dominion over him ! Blessed are ye when men curse you, says the 
 Truth. This is the foundation on which I build ; this is ihe food for my 
 spirit, recruiting it with fresh vigor to contend against all adversaries 
 of the truth." Alluding to the deliberations then in progress about 
 the course which ought to be pursued in order to clear the kingdom 
 from the reproach of heresy, Huss in a letter to the same person re- 
 marks : " As to the disgrace of the king and the realm, of what harm 
 is it, if the king is good, and some at least of the inhabitants of the 
 realm are good ? Christ passed through the greatest reproach together 
 "^ith his chosen, to whom he said (John 16: 2. Matt. 10: 21, 22), Ye 
 shall be delivered up by your parents and kinsmen ; which is more than 
 to be reproached by Stanislaus or Paletz." - 
 
 With this rector of Prague university, Huss kept up a correspond- 
 ence from Kozi. The same person had written him a letter of consola- 
 tion, placing before him several passages of Scripture which speak of 
 the suSerings of the righteous, such as 2 Tim. 3: 12, and reasoning from 
 
 ' Undc de isto teste confidens, qucm din ipse donaverit, confitebor. Ibid. foL 
 
 nulla multitudo testium potest a veiitate 287, 2. 
 
 flectere, nee Komana curia exterrere, nee ' Extracts from these as yet unpublish- 
 
 aliquod munus curvarc, nee alicjua ])()ten- ed letters in Palacky, III, 1, p, 297 and 
 
 tia vincere, veritatem evan;^elicara, quam- 298, note. 
 
LETTERS OF HUSS 12^ EXILE. 311 
 
 tliem that he should not allow himself to be troubled by his temporal 
 afflictions and separation from his friends, but rejoice over all. " Very 
 thankfully, answers IIuss, do I accept this consolation, while I fasten 
 on those passages of Scripture and rely on this, that if I am a righteous 
 man, nothing can trouble me or induce me to swerve from the truth. 
 And if I live and will live devoutly in Christ, then in the name of Christ 
 must I suffer persecutions ; for if it became Christ to suffer and so enter 
 into his glory, it surely becomes us, poor creatures, to take up the cross 
 and so follow him in his sufferings. And I assure you that persecution 
 would never trouble me, if my sins and the corruption of christian peo- 
 ple did not trouble me. For what harm could it do me to lose the riches 
 of this world, which are but dross ? What harjn, to lose the favor of 
 the world, which might lead me astray from the way of Christ ? What 
 harm, to suffer reproach, which, if borne Avith patience, purifies and 
 transfigures the children of God, so that they shine like the sun, in the 
 kingdom of their Father ? And finally, what harm, to have my poor 
 life taken from me, which * is death ; if he who loses this, lays death 
 aside, and finds the true life ? But this is what they cannot compre- 
 hend, who are blinded by pomp, honor, and avarice, and by whom 
 some have been seduced from the truth through fear, where nothing 
 was to be feared." " As to my body — says he — that I hope, by the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, if mercy bestow the strength on me, to offer up, 
 since I desire not to five longer in this miserable world, if I cannot 
 stir up myself and others, according to the will of God, to repentance. 
 This I wish for you also ; and I exhort you, in the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 with all the companions of your board, that you be ready for the trial; 
 for the prelude of Antichrist must begin first, and then the contest will 
 go on in right good earnest. And the goose must flap her wings against 
 the wings of behemoth, and against the tail which always conceals the 
 abominations of Antichrist. The Lord will reduce the tail and his prophets 
 to nothing, i. e. the pope and his prophets, the masters, teachers, and ju- 
 rists, who, under the hypocritical name of holiness, conceal the abomi- 
 nations of the beast." He then adverts to it, that the papacy is the 
 abomination of self -deification in the holy place, as the papacy made 
 traffic of spiritual things. '' Wo then is me — he writes — if I do not 
 preach of that abomination, if I do not weep over it, write about it." i 
 It was a sreat srief to Huss to be obh^ed to leave the scene of the con- 
 flict, and suspend his labors for his beloved community in Bethlehem 
 chapel. He had a severe struggle with himself, his most earnest wishes 
 caUing him back to his flock, while on the other hand imperative rea- 
 sons bade him to remain concealed a while, that the best interests of this 
 community might be promoted. He considered it of prime importance 
 here to make the words and the example of Christ his rule of action. 
 To this a great deal relates, in the letters which he wrote to his com- 
 munity or to his fellow combatants among the clergy, whose opinion he 
 consults on this subject.^ In a letter to two clergymen, he writes : 
 
 ' Hus opp. I, fol. 94, 1 et 2. de Miliczin, opp. I, fol. 93, 2 and fol. 94, 1. 
 
 ' Ep. ad Mag. Martinum et Mag. Nicol. 
 
ol-2 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 " Having an earnest desire to preach the gospel, I am troubled, 
 since I know not what I ought to do. I have, indeed, pondered in my 
 soul those words of our Lord (John 10: 11, 12), A good shepherd 
 giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shep- 
 herd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth 
 the sheep and fleeth, and the wolf catclieth them and scattereth the 
 sheep." And then he says : " But I have thought also of the words 
 of our Lord (Matt. 10 : 23), But when they persecute you in one city, 
 flee ye into another. Beliold the precept or promise of Christ : I know 
 not which of these two opposite things I ought to do." He then cites 
 a letter of Augustin, written during the persecutions of the Vandals, 
 and addressed to Ilonoratus, a clergyman, who had asked his advice 
 as to the course of duty. " Give me, then, your opinion. Could you 
 rest satisfied with the advice of Augustin ? For my conscience troubles 
 me. I know not but my absence may give scandal, though the sheep 
 do not want for needful nourishment from the divine word. On the 
 other hand, I encounter the fear lest my presence should, through that 
 execrable device of an interdict, be laid hold of as a pretext for de- 
 priving them of their nourishment, namely the communion, and other 
 things ministrant to salvation. Therefore let us humbly beg that the 
 Almigiity God would teach us what I, a poor creature, ought to do in 
 this present case, so as not to swerve from the path of uprightness." 
 Accordingly he writes, just before the Christmas festival of 1413, to his 
 Bethlehem congregation : " Dearly beloved — the day of our Lord's 
 nativity draws near ; therefore make clean the inner house, that it be 
 pure from all sin. So far as you are able, hear dihgently and devoutly 
 the word of God. Care not for those enemies who would keep you 
 from hearing the sermons in Bethlehem chapel. Once I myself was 
 the reason why they endeavored to draw you away from that house. 
 Now they have no such reason. But if they say, I have run away 
 and left you ; be assured that I did it voluntarily, to fulfil the word of 
 Christ and in imitation of his example, who says. Whosoever shall not 
 receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of tliat house or 
 city, shake off the dust of your feet (Matt. 10: 14 and 10: 23)," and 
 he adverts to the fact that Christ often, when the Jews would have 
 killed him, escaped from their hands (John 10: 39. 11: 54 ff.). *' It is 
 no wonder therefore — he proceeds — that, in imitation of his example, 
 I have withdrawn myself, for the present ; and that the priests seek 
 for me and ask where I am. Know then that I, led bv this exhorta- 
 tion of Christ and by his example, have withdrawn myself, that I may 
 not {)rove to the wicked an occasion of everlasting damnation ; and to 
 the good, cause of oppression and trouble : and then again, tliat the 
 godless priests may not wholly prevent the preachingof the divine word. 
 I have not yielded, therefore, with any intention that divine truth 
 should be denied, through me, for which truth I hope, with God's help, 
 to die. In the next place, you know that it became Christ, as he I.iia- 
 self says, to suffer until tlie time apj)ointed by the Father. Of this, ilion. 
 be well assured, that whatever God has determined to do willi nie, an. 11 
 be done. And if I am worthy to die for his name, he will call t<> mo 
 
LETTERS OF HUSS IN EXILE. 313 
 
 suffering. But if it .be his pleasure to draw me forth, once more, to the 
 preaching of his word, this depends upon his own will." lie then ob- 
 serves tliat " it was no doubt the wish of many priests in Prague that 
 he should return thither ; for the interdict would then supply them 
 with an excuse for their indolence : no masses would have to be read, 
 no hours to be sung ; but all such were enemies to the preaching of the 
 gospel, because their vices were exposed thereby to the light. Never- 
 theless you, he adds, who love God's word and strive to become one 
 with it, would be glad to see me because you love me as your neighbor. 
 I too would be glad once more to see you, that I might preach to you 
 God's word ; for this must ever be the great and especial concern of 
 the ministers of the church, to preach to the people the gospel of Christ 
 in its purity and with fruit, so that the people may know God's will, 
 avoid the bad and be led in the good way of a just and virtuous life. 
 Wo therefore to the priests who neglect God's word, who lead lives of 
 indolent repose when they might be preaching it. And wo to those who 
 hinder the preaching and the hearing of the divine word. But blessed 
 are they who hear it and treasure it up in their hearts, and by good 
 works observe it."^ On the festival of Christmas, he wrote to that 
 community : " Though I am at present separated from you in the 
 body, because perhaps I am not worthy to preach to you any longer 
 the word of God ; yet the love with which I infold you, impels me to 
 come, in the way at least of addressing you a few words." The few 
 words were to this effect : that what, in other circumstances, he would 
 have said to them from the pulpit, was briefly summed up in this let- 
 ter ; that they should lay to heart the significance of the jfestival ; that 
 he wished them the heavenly blessings secured to the faithful by the 
 event which this festival commemorated. ^ In another letter to the same 
 community, he applies to himself the words of Paul in the epistle to the 
 Philippians (1: 28) : " I say to you, my beloved, though I am not in 
 prison, yet I would gladly, for Christ's sake, die and be with him ; 
 and yet I would gladly too, for your good, preach to you God's word ; 
 but I am in a strait betwixt two, and know not which to choose. For 
 I await God's mercy, and I fear again lest something bad be done 
 among you, so as to expose the faithful to persecution and the unbe- 
 lieving to eternal death." He says of his enemies : " They at present 
 rejoice, and wish that not only in me the word of God may perish, but 
 also that Bethlehem church, where I preached to you the gospel of 
 Christ, may be closed. But without God's permission they will ac- 
 complish nothing ; if however he permits it, it will be done on account 
 of the sins of unthankful men ; as Bethlehem wher^ he was born, and 
 Jerusalem where he redeemed us, were utterly destroyed." 3 Although 
 a presentiment of the death which might befal him in contending for the 
 truth had long been on his mind, yet he had at the same time a prophetic 
 consciousness that, though his person might perish, the truth would come 
 forth triumphant out of the contest, and would by other instrumentalities 
 be still more powerfully attested. We may look upon such utterances of 
 
 ' Ibid. fol. 98, 2 and fol. 99, 1. a Ibid. fol. 97, 1. 
 
 « Ibid. fol. 99, 1 and 2. 
 
 VOL. V. 27 
 
31-4 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 Hnss, ■v\hlch we shall occasionally come across, as a propliecy of the Ger- 
 man Reformation, though Huss was really thinking of that which was pres- 
 ently to take place on the theatre of his own past labors. Thus he writes 
 a letter to the Bethlehem community, at the time when various attempts 
 were made to break it up : " They have directed their attacks against 
 many churches and chapels, that the word of God might not be preached 
 in them. Yet Christ has not permitted them to accomplish their |)ur- 
 pose. Already, as I hear, they are seeking the destruction of Bethle- 
 liem chapel, and in other chapels they forbid the j)reacliing of God's 
 word. Yet I trust in God that they Avill accomplish nothing. At first 
 they prepared snares, citations, and ban for the " goose," and already 
 they are lying in wait for some of you. But since tlie goose, a tame ani- 
 mal[ a domestic animal, iciih no wings to soar aloft, has broken through 
 their snares, we mag the more confidentlg expect that other birds who, 
 by the word of God and their lives do soar aloft, uill turn their toils and 
 ■plottings to nought. And after having remarked how, by the interdict, 
 they were seeking to suppress the worship and word of •God in Prague, 
 he adds : '' But the more they seek to conceal their oiun real character, 
 the more openly it betrays itself ; and the more they seek to spread out 
 their decrees like a net, the more they are rent in pieces ; and in seeking 
 to have the peace of the world, they lose that and spiritual peace at the 
 same time ; in seeking to injure others, they injure then\selves most. 
 It happened to them as to the priests of the Jews : they lost that which 
 they were endeavoring to secure, and fell into the evil they were aim- 
 ing to avoid, in fancying that they could overcome and suppress the 
 truth, which always conquers ; since this is its habit and nature, that 
 the more it is obscured the more it shines out, and the more it is beat 
 down the higher it rises. Priests, scribes, and pharisets, Herod, Pi- 
 late and the other dwellers, in Jerusalem, condemned trui'\ and gave it 
 over to death and the grave ; but it arose again, all-conrpiering, and 
 substituted in place of itself tivelve other heralds. And this same Truth 
 has sent to Prague instead of one feeble goose, many falcons and eagles, 
 which excel in sharpness of vision all other birds. These, by the grace 
 of God, soar upward, high upward, and swoop away other birds to Jesus 
 Christ, who will strengthen them, and confirm all his faithful ones. For he 
 declares I am with you always, unto the end of the world. If //<; then be 
 with us, the true God and mightiest, best defender, who, in his malice, 
 shall be against us ? What fear or what death shall separate us from 
 Him ? What do we lose when, for his sake, we lose earthly goods, 
 friends, honors, and this wretched hfe ? Surely we shall then first be 
 delivered from this wretchedness, and obtain a hundred-fold greater 
 possessions, dearer friends, and a more perfect joy. Death shall not 
 deprive us of these things. For he who dies for Christ compiers, and 
 will be delivered from all sorrows and attain to that eternal joy to which 
 may our Saviour Jesus Christ bring us all. This letter — he concludes 
 — dearest brethren and beloved sisters, I have written to the end 
 that you might stand fast in the truth you have known, fear no cita- 
 tions, and attend not a whit less than you ever did, on account of their 
 cruel threats, to the preaching of God's word. For God is faithful, who 
 
LETTERS OP IIUSS IN EXILE. 315 
 
 "will establish you and preserve you from evil." Then follows a postscnpt 
 of requests, hinting at the labors to which Huss was then devoting him- 
 self in his retirement. " Pray for those who preach God's truth with 
 grace, and pray also for me, that I may more richly write and preach 
 against Antichrist, and that God may lead me in the battle, when I am 
 driven to the greatest strait, that so I may be able to maintain Ida own 
 truth. For know, that I shrink not from giving up this poor body for 
 God's truth, when I feel assured there is no want of the preaching of 
 God's word, but that daily the truth of the gospel is more widely spread. 
 But I desire to hve for their sakes to whom violence is done, and who 
 need the preaching of God's word, that in this way the mahce of Anti- 
 christ may be discovered as a warning to the pious. I preach there- 
 fore in other places, ministering to whoever may be found there ; since 
 I know that God's will is fulfilled in me, whether it be by a death hung 
 over me by Antichrist, or whether I die in sickness. And if I come to 
 Prague, I am certain that my enemies will lie in wait for me and per- 
 secute you, they who do not serve God themselves and hinder others 
 from serving him. But let us pray God for them, if peradventure 
 there may be some elect ones among them, that they may be turned to 
 the knowledge of the truth."- Respecting the attempts to shut up or 
 destroy Bethlehem chapel, he says : " They would suppress God's holy 
 word, tear down a chapel erected for its service, and hinder the people 
 in their salvation." He calls upon them to ponder well the disgrace 
 ■which would be brought upon their country, their nation, their race ; 
 the calumny and shame which would fall upon themselves without any 
 fault of their own. Antichrist and the devil could do them no harm, if 
 they remained faithful to divine truth. They had now, for some years, 
 been lying in wait for himself, and had not (as he hoped in God) hurt 
 a hair of his head, but only occasioned him greater cheerfulness and 
 hilarity. Great pains would be taken to induce them to abjure the er- 
 rors imputed to them. Huss warns them that, by so doing, they w^ould 
 either deny the truth, or wrongly accuse themselves of errors which 
 they were far from cherishing. He exhorts them to trust in Christ the 
 Almighty .2 He reminds the Bethlehem congregation of his many years 
 of labor among them and of its fruits, and says : *' For the sake of 
 this, as God is my witness, I have labored more than twelve years in 
 preaching among you the divine word ; and in this my greatest conso- 
 lation was to observe your earnest dilio-ence in hearing; God's word and 
 to witness the true and sincere repentance of many." He warns them 
 against the fickleness of those who once fought by him and then went 
 over to the other side. " Have no regard for those persons walking a 
 crooked path, who have turned about and are now the most violent ene- 
 mies of G-od, and our enemies." He reminds them that, even among 
 the disciples of Christ, were those who once walked with him and then 
 fell away from him. Exhorting them not to follow such examples, but 
 faithfully to persevere in the confession of the truth and in attachment 
 
 ' Ibid. fol. 96, 2 and fol. 97, 1. published in the original Bohemian. Leips. 
 
 '^ See Ferd.B.Milowec, Letters of John 1849. Let. 4 
 Huss, written at Constance 1414-1415, 
 
316 HISTORY OF JHEOLOGT AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 to those whom the Lord had sent to preach it to them, he requests them 
 to pray for himself, that God would give him good success in preach- 
 ing his word. "In all the places — says he — where a need exists, 
 in cities, in villages, in castles, in the fields, in forests, wherever I can 
 be of any use, pray for me, that the word of God may not be kept back 
 in me." ^ Sympathy with the cause of IIuss, we perceive, had spread 
 into other cities of Bohemia. Thus we find a letter of his to a foreign 
 community, exhorting them to concord and warning them against inter- 
 nal dissensions.s To a parish priest in Prachatic, one who had been 
 concerned in passing the sentence of condemnation against the forty-five 
 proy^ositions of Wicklif and in burning his writings, and who persisted 
 in clamoring against Huss himself as a heretic, he wrote a letter chal- 
 lenging the man to convict him of a single heresy, but upbraiding him 
 with the fact that, with all his pretended zeal for orthodoxy, he had 
 constantly neglected the duties of the pastoral office, for which he had 
 been thirty years responsible. " You might yourself call to mind how, 
 for about thirty years, you have sheared the sheep in Prachatic. And 
 where is your residence, your work ; where the pasturage of your 
 sheep ? " He reminds him of what Christ, to whom he must render 
 an account of his doings, says against unfaithful shepherds (John x.), 
 and adds : " This you should have thought of before you denounced 
 your neighbor as a heretic." 3 
 
 From expressions which drop from him in several of these letters, it 
 is evident that his separation from his beloved flock bore heavily upon 
 his spirits. There may be some ground, therefore, for the report 
 that Huss in the course of this year, 1413, went privately several 
 times to Prague, and resided there ; leaving the city, as soon as his 
 presence became known, and began to make a stir." * Some time 
 afterwards, to be nearer to his church, he changed his residence and 
 accepted the invitation of a friend, belonging to the knightly order, 
 Henry of Lazan, who offered him, as a place of refuge, his castle, the 
 strong-hold of Cracowec. From this spot, too, he labored for the 
 spread of evangelical truth, visiting those places where large multi- 
 tudes were wont to gather, and preaching before them. From all 
 quarters, it is said, the people flocked together in crowds to hear 
 him. 
 
 Meanwhile the time drew near for the assembling of the general 
 council at Constance. To the objects of this council, the reformation 
 of the church in its head and members, the restoration of concord, tran- 
 quillity, and peace in the church, necessarily belonged the adjust- 
 ment of the controversies in Bohemia and Moravia, which threatened 
 to spread wider every day, and which had already attracted universal 
 attention. Chancellor Gerson had at an earlier period already ap- 
 prized Archbishop Conrad, of Vechta, of the danger v.hich threatened 
 the church of a revolution growing out of the commotions in Bohemia, 
 and exhorted him to apply strenuous measures for the suppression of 
 
 » 0pp. I. fol. 99, 2 and 100, 1. ' Ihid. fol. 93, 2. 
 
 * Ibid. fol. lUO, 2. * Palacky, III, 1, p. 304. 
 
HUSS IN CRACOWEC. 317 
 
 heresies. Nor could it fail to happen that the Emperor SiL^ismund 
 would be urged to bring this matter also within the circle of business 
 to be transacted at the council. lie invited his brother, King Wen- 
 ceslaus, to send IIuss to Constance, and promised to furnish the latter 
 with a safe conduct. He caused IIuss to be informed by Lefl, of 
 Lazan, one of the two knights employed to negotiate this affair between 
 him and the emperor, that he would make sufficient provision for his 
 beins: heard before the council, and that if he did not submit to the 
 decision of the council, he would send him back unharmed to Bohe- 
 mia.' Huss needed no such invitation either from the emperor or the 
 king. An opportunity to defend himself from the charge of heresy, to 
 give an account of his faith in presence of the rej^resentatives of all 
 Western Christendom, and to testify against the corruptions of the 
 church, was what he most earnestly desired. But, before he set out 
 on his journey to Constance, he appeared once more, in the August 
 of 1414, in Prague. Here, by a public notice posted on all the 
 church doors, he invited any man who pleased, under the condition 
 that if he could not make good his case he would agree to suffer the 
 same punishment which Huss would be liable to if convicted, to con- 
 vict him before the archbishop, or a synod to be convoked by him, of 
 any heresy. Huss could not get permission, it is true, either for Idm- 
 self or for his advocate Jesenic, to appear before the synod. He was 
 put aside with the declaration, th^it they were too busily occupied with 
 other affairs of the kingdom, to be able to attend to his matter. He 
 got a certificate drawn up to that effect. He had an interview, more- 
 over, with the archbishop,^ after which the latter made out for him a 
 declaration, stating that he found him guilty of no heresy ; that he 
 had nothing to lay against him, save this only that he had remained 
 so long under the ban, and nothing to advise, -save only that he 
 should get it removed as soon as possible.^ He also submitted to a 
 special examination of the charges brought against him, and undertook 
 to demonstrate their futihty."* He procured an investigation of his 
 creed under the direction of the pope's inquisitor, the bishop of Naza- 
 
 ' Ep. 34, opp. I, fol. 69, 1. The instru- in the districts throu.di which Huss would 
 ment relating to this matter drawn up by be obliged to travel : but as Huss was 
 the emperor, whereby Huss is taken under taken unconditionally under the protec- 
 the protection of the emperor and the em- tion of the emperor and the empire, as it 
 pire, speaks expressly not only of the jour- speaks not barely of his journey to Con- 
 ney of Huss to Constance, but also of his stanee hut also of his return home, it is 
 return home: Ut ei transire, stare, morari, implied that he should have it in his power 
 redire libere permittatis. Opp. I, fol. 1,2. to return home unharmed from Constance. 
 "We notice this on account of the sophisti- ' There was probably no personal in- 
 cal interpretations of that document in terview. The statement is simply (fol. 3, 
 modern times, as though it were merely a 2): Supplex petebat a dominis baronibus, 
 passport given to Huss for his journey to ut suo nomine agerent cum domino arch- 
 Constance, and as though the emperor, iepiscopo. Neither does Palacky know of 
 therefore, had not bound" himself by his any such interview. 
 word to secure safety to Huss in Con- ^ Opp. I. fol. 3, 2. 
 
 stance itself. To be sure, there is no ex- '* The report of this ti'ial from a copy 
 
 press mention of this, nor ought there to made by Peter of Mladcnowic, secretary 
 
 be any if we consider the nature of the to that zealous friend of Huss, the Knight 
 
 document, which is addressed not to the John of Chlum, is printed in the Stud. u. 
 
 council but to the lords and magistrates Kritik. 1837, 1, Heft. 
 
 27* 
 
318 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 reth, and be too drew up a testimonial, certifying that he found no- 
 thing heretical in him. But, though many false accusations had been 
 brought against Huss, and his expressions often perverted by his ene- 
 mies, yet it is evident from the expositions we have already given, that 
 outwardly devoted as Huss at thatr time really was to the dominant 
 church system, the principles expressed by him did, in fact, contain 
 within them germs of doctrine which would lead to an overthrow of 
 that svstem. But it depended entirely upon the fact, how far, how 
 sharply and profoundly, the indi\idual who conducted his examination 
 •was capable of seeing, whether or not that individual would be able to 
 detect in the obedience, which appeared so obvious as a matter of fact, 
 the germ of resistance which lay concealed at bottom. And we cer- 
 tainly should not omit to notice, that the advocates of the church 
 party in Prague at that time might be determined in some measure, 
 by a regard to the party opposed to them, to act otherwise than they 
 would have done in different circumstances. ^ Huss before his depar- 
 ture wrote to the Emperor Sigismund, thanking him for the trouble he 
 took on his account. He says : " I will humbly trust my life on it, 
 and under the safe-conduct of your protection shall, with the permission 
 of the Highest, appear at the next council at Constance." He begs 
 the emperor to provide for it ; that, coming in peace to Constance, he 
 might there have an opportunity publicly to confess his faith. " For, 
 as I have taught nothing in secret, so I wish to be heard, to be exam- 
 ined, to preach, and, under help of the Divine Spirit, to answer all 
 who are disposed to accuse me, not in secret but publicly. And I 
 hope I shall not be afraid to confess the Lord Christ, and, if it must 
 be, to die for his law, which is the most true." The emperor, as we 
 find from this letter, had promised Huss that his cause should be 
 conducted to a happy issue,2 whence, it is evident, how far the em- 
 peror was from wishing or anticipating any such result as that which 
 actually came about. Huss thanked the emperor for his kind inten- 
 tions, and in allusion to his promise, said " Which, too, your Majesty 
 will perform to the honor of the King of kings." It is evident from 
 many things which he says, in his farewell letter, that Huss set out 
 on his journey to Constance with a feeling of perfect confidence in the 
 emperor's word, and the promised letter of safe-conduct, though that 
 paper had not yet been put into his hands. Several of his friends 
 cautioned him against trusting too much in the emperor's word — he 
 could deliver him over to his enemies.3 Afterwards, in the midst of 
 his trials at Constance, the words of one of his congregation, Andrew, 
 a Polish tailor, recurred to his thoughts, who, in taking leave said to 
 
 ' As Paletz expresses himself: No one in Bohemia had said to him on this sub 
 
 ventured to call the followers of Huss by ject : Quod cavere deberem a suo con- 
 
 their pro{)er name, quia renun et corporum diicto, et : Ijise tc dabit iiiiniicis, and the 
 
 pcriculuni immineret. ()pp- I. fol. 2r)5, 2. words addressed to him l)y a certain 
 
 * Volens ad tincm laudal)ilem deducere. kni;rht : He mi;rht be sure that he would 
 
 See this letter in I'alacky, III, 1, p. 312 be condemned. lie suj)poses this person 
 
 and 313 note. must have known the purpose of the em- 
 
 ' Huss himself called to mind, when his peror. Ep. 34, opp. I, fol. 68, 2. 
 death was near at hand, what his frieuds 
 
DEPARTURE OF HUSS FROM PRAGUE. 319 
 
 him .• '' God be with thee ; for hardly, think I, Avilt thou get back 
 again unharmed, dearest Master John, and most steadfost in the truth ! 
 Not the king of Hungary but the King of Heaven reward thee with 
 all good for the good and true instruction that I have received from 
 thee." ^ It was the consciousness of following a divine call, wliich 
 animated Huss in directmg his steps to Constance, though the presen- 
 timent of death was not absent from his mind. He was resigned to 
 the will of God, let his cause issue as it might, the glory and triumph 
 of divine truth, the weal of the souls for whom he had labored, being 
 his sole wish. So he expresses himself in his last letter, taking leave 
 of his congregation, written the day before his departure, October 
 10th, 1414. ''You know — he begins — my brethren, that I have 
 now long instructed you in good faith, setting before you GocVs word, 
 not things remote from the faith in Christ, not false doctrines. For I 
 have always sought and will ever seek, so long as I live, your wel- 
 fare." He then says, that he had intended, before leaving, to preach 
 before them, and defend himself from the false accusations against his 
 faith, but had been prevented by want of time, and reserved it for a 
 future opportunity. He tells them, that he is going into the midst of 
 his worst enemies. " There will be more against me — he says — in 
 the council of my enemies, than there were against our Saviour : first, 
 of the number of bishops and masters ; next, of the princes of this 
 world and pharisees. But I hope in God, my Almighty Saviour, that, 
 on the gro\ind of his own promise and in answer to your fervent pray- 
 ers, he will bestow on me wisdom, and a skilful tongue, so as to be 
 able to stand up against them. He will, too, bestow on me a spirit to 
 despise persecutions, imprisonment, and death ; for we see that Christ 
 himself suffered for the sake of his chosen, giving us an example, that 
 we should suffer all things for Him and for our salvation. He cer- 
 tainly cannot perish, who behoves on him and perseveres in Ms truth." 
 " If my death — says he — can glorify his name, then may he haston 
 it, and give me grace to endure with good courage whatever evil may 
 befal me. But, if it is better for me that I should return to you, 
 then let us beseech God for this, that I may come back to you from 
 the council without wrong ; that is, without detriment to his truth, so 
 that we may from thenceforth be able to come to a purer knowledo-e 
 of it, to destroy the doctrines of Antichrist, and leave behind us a 
 good example for our brethren." "Perhaps — says he — you will 
 never see me again in Prague; but, if God should, in his mercy, 
 bring me back to you again, I will with a more cheerful courage go 
 on in the law of the Lord ; but especially when we shall meet to- 
 gether in eternal glory. God is merciful and just, and gives peace 
 to his own here, and beyond death. May He watch over you, who 
 has cleansed us, his sheep, through his own holy and precious blood, 
 which blood is the everlasting pledge of our salvation. And may Ho 
 grant, that you may be enabled to fulfil his will, and having fulfilled 
 it, attain to peace and eternal glory through our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 
 * Ibid. ep. 33. 
 
320 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 "with all -who abide in his truth." i lie sent back also a letter to his 
 disciple, Martin, a young man -who had been trained up from child- 
 hood under his care, superscribed mt\\ the injunction that he was not 
 to open it, till he received certain intelligence of his death. It con- 
 tained touching exhortations to purity of morals, "warned him against 
 extravagance in dress, a foible -which still clung to the young candi- 
 date, and enjoined it upon him never to seek a parish for any earthly 
 advantage, but only from a dcF^ire to promote the welfare of souls.3 
 lie cautions him against imitating what was foulty in his own exam- 
 ple, mentioning, among other things, his passionate fondness, before he 
 entered the priesthood, for the game of chess, in pursuing which amuse- 
 ment he had allowed himself to grow excited even to anger against 
 others. Such was the delicate sensibihty of his conscience.3 He de- 
 parted from Prague, on the 11th of October, 1414, in company with 
 four others — the two knights, who had it in charge to protect him 
 from all injury, Wenzel, of Duba, and John, of Chlum, that zealous, 
 noble friend of Huss, whom we shall often have occasion to mention 
 hereafter; Chlum's secretary, the Bachelor Peter of Mladenowic, 
 who also was sincerely attached to Huss, and his friend, the delegate 
 from Prague University, Priest John Cardinalis, of Reinstein. 
 
 Though it was more particularly with the party of the Germaa 
 theologians, that IIuss had thus hr had to contend, yet the reception 
 he met with in his journey through German v, was by no means such 
 as he might have been led to expect in a country where the report of 
 his heresies had been so industriously circulated by his enemies. A 
 great longing for the reformation of the church had already spread 
 wide among the German people ; and this perhaps inclined many to 
 look favorably on a man who had distinguished himself, as they may 
 have heard in various ways, by his zeal against the corruption of the 
 spiritual orders, and for the purification of the church. Their person- 
 al intercourse with Huss, the impression conveyed by his looks and 
 his discourse, would tend to strengthen this inclination to regard him 
 with favor. He nowhere avoided notice : in every town he showed 
 himself openly in his carriage, travelling in the dress of a priest.'* In 
 all the places through which he passed, he posted up public notices in 
 Bohemian, Latin, and German, offering to give any one who wished 
 to speak with him, on the matter of his faith, an account of his reli- 
 gious convictions, and to prove, that he was very far from cherishing 
 anything like heresy. In the little town of Pernau, the parish priest 
 with his vicars waited upon him in person at his quarters, drank to his 
 health from a large tankard of wine, conversed with him on matters 
 of christian faith, avowed that he fully agreed with him, and declared 
 that he had always been his friend. s In Nuremburg, the ancient seat 
 
 * 0pp. I, fol. 57, cp. 2, and Milowec, 1, turn mcum libenter et sacpc schacos lusi, 
 Letter. tern pus ncglcxi et saepe alios et me ad 
 
 * Si vocatus fueris ad plebaniam, honor iracundiam per ilium ludum infeliciter 
 dei, salus animarum et labor te moveat, provocavi, 
 
 non hahiiio scropharum vel pracdiomm * Milowec, 2, Letter, of the 16th of Nov., 
 0pp. I, fol. 57, 1 ; ep. 1. 1414. 
 
 ^ Scis, quia (proh dolor) ante saccrdo- * 0pp. I, fol. 57, 2; ep. 3. 
 
ARRIVAL OF nUSS IX COXSTANCE. 321 
 
 of the Friends of God, merchants, who arrived earlier tluan himself, 
 had already spread the news that he was on his way and mi;^ht soon 
 be expected, and large bodies of the peo[tle came out to meet him. 
 Before dinner he received a letter, from a parish priest of the church 
 of St. Sebaldus, requesting an interview with him, to which he cheer- 
 fully consented. During dinner a note was handed to him by one 
 of his attendants, Wcnzel, of Duba, purporting that, in consequence 
 of the notice he had posted up, many citizens and masters wished to 
 speak with him. This, too, was welcome tidings. lie left his table 
 for the purpose of conversing with them. The masters were for hav- 
 ing a private interview^ because they had scruples about the propriety 
 of speaking on such matters before laymen. But Huss would listen 
 to no such proposal of discussing matters of faith privately, declaring 
 that he had always testified of gospel truth openly, and meant to do so 
 still. In presence of the burgomaster and many citizens, he con- 
 versed about his doctrine till night-fall, and his hearers professed to be 
 satisfied w^ith him. If Huss sought to approve himself as a genuine 
 witness of gospel truth, before all the world, we surely ought not to 
 look upon this as an ambitious effort on his part to court the approba- 
 tion of the many ; unless we are disposed to raise the same objection 
 against every zealous preacher of evangelical truth ; which, to be sure, 
 is often done. While Huss was disputing with certain persons in the 
 little Suabian tow^n of Bibrach, the noble Knight John, of Chlum, took 
 so lively an interest in this disputation, and spoke with so much warmth 
 in favor of the doctrines of Huss, that he was taken for a doctor of 
 theology ; hence Huss was wont, afterwards in his letters, playfully to 
 call him the Doctor of Bibrach.^ Well aware of the great ignorance 
 of the people in the things of religion, Huss was accustomed wherever 
 he lodged to leave for his hosts on departing a copy of the Ten Com- 
 mandments, or even to write them in the meal, as he had written 
 them on the walls of Bethlehem Chapel. 
 
 He reached Constance, on the third of November, some days after 
 the arrival of Pope John, whom he met on the way. 
 
 During the first four weeks, which Huss spent at Constance, nothing 
 was proposed or said with regard to his affair. He would have found 
 no friends, he writes, in Constance, if his adversaries from Bohemia 
 had not taken pains to make him hated. "^ Meantime his most violent 
 enemies, the already mentioned Michael de Oausis, Paletz, and the 
 prime author of all the last commotions in Prague, the man who as 
 papal legate had brought to Bohemia the bull of indulgence and cru- 
 sade, Wenzel Tiem, formerly dean, then provost of Passau, had also 
 arrived. 3 These persons set everything in motion against him Mich- 
 ael de Causis, on the next day after his arrival, caused a notice to be 
 posted on all the churches, accusing him as the vilest heretic. His op- 
 ponents brought with them the writings which he had composed during 
 
 ^ Ibid. fol. 71, 1 ; ep. 45 in the marginal fortes insurgunt contra me, quos praeser- 
 
 UQte. tim concitat venditor indulgentiarum, Pa- 
 
 ^ Mikowec, 2, Letter. thaviensis decanus. 0pp. I, fol. 58, 2 ; 
 
 * Words of Huss : Multi adversarii et ep. 6. 
 
322 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 the last disputes and attempts at compromise ; writings in "wliich he 
 had most freely expressed his opinions ; and these they now put in 
 circulation. These were especially to be used- against him. The 
 form of accusation, drawn up by Michael de Causis, was well calcula- 
 ted to arouse against lluss the anxious suspicions of the hierarchy. 
 Assertions ascribed wrongly to IIuss, and assertions which had really 
 been made by him, were lumj)ed together ; and his accuser declares, 
 that if he should be acquitted, the clergy in Bohemia must suffer griev- 
 ous persecutions in their property and persons ; everj'thing would be 
 turned to confusion, and the evil would spread through all Grermany ; 
 and such a persecution of the clergy and the faithful would ensue, as 
 had never been known since the days of Constantino. If he should in 
 any way get safely out of the hands of the council, he and his adher- 
 ents would have it to say, that his doctrines must have been approved 
 by the council. The princes and laity generally would fall u[)on the 
 clergy, as they had already done in Bohemia, and as they were gene- 
 rally inclined to do.^ The pope sent as his delegate, to Huss, the 
 bishop of Constance, accompanied by his officials, and the Auditor 
 sacri palatii^ a high officer of the papal court. They informed him it 
 had been with the pope a matter of much deliberation how to dispose 
 of the interdict pronounced on the place where he resided. Finally, 
 the pope had concluded to resort to the pope's plenitude of power, 
 and to suspend the interdict and the ban for the present. It was only 
 requested that, in order to avoid giving scandal, he would keep away 
 from mass and other church solemnities ; in all other respects, he 
 should have liberty to go wherever he pleased. But Huss had never 
 relinquished his right, as a priest, to hold mass ; nor did he mean to 
 do it now ; — a pertinacity, which could not fail to give great offence 
 to the hierarchical party. 2 When many of the friends of Huss, pro- 
 testing to his innocence, urged the pope to retract all that had hither- 
 to been done in the matter, he ^i-ave an evasive answer, lavin;]i; all the 
 blame on the enemies of Huss in Bohemia, who refused to take back 
 anything, but warmly persisted in their accusations against him.^ Yet 
 many no doubt were anxious that the whole affair should be settled 
 If'fore it was brought up as a matter for public deliberation. And 
 perhaps Huss, it" he could have been prevailed upon to humble him- 
 self before the papal authority, and to give in a recantation of the 
 heresies of which he hUd been accused, might have secured to himself 
 this advantage. Two bishops and a doctor of theology actually made 
 to him a proposition of this sort."* ]]ut Huss would consent to nothing 
 like it. He wanted a public hearing before the assembled council ; 
 before that council he feU im[)elled to give in the account of his faith, 
 and bear witness of the truth, tor which he contended. He hoped 
 that nothing would be done in his affair until the Emperor Sigismund 
 
 ' Tli^t. IIus«:i. opp. I. fol. 6 sq. it: Quid cjro possum t.imcn ? vcstri fa- 
 
 - Words of the ^lajristerJoli. Ciirdinalis ciunt. Ibid. fol. 58, 2; ep. 6. 
 
 of ll'.'instein : Ma^istcr {piotidie divina * Sed locuti sunt duo cpiscopi et unus 
 
 peragit et in tota via perogit hucuscjue. doctor cum Jo. Lcpka. nuod ego sub si* 
 
 Opp. I, fol. 58. 1 ; op. 4. lentio con ordarem. Ibid. 
 ^ Papa uou vult tollerc processus et dix- 
 
nuSS BEFORE IIIS IMPRISONMENT IN CONSTANCE. 323 
 
 should arrive, who had ah-cady caused him to be informed of liis satis- 
 faction at learning that he had started on liis journey without waiting 
 for the letter of safe-conduct, which liad first reached him in Con- 
 stance. When the emperor arrived he hoped by his intercession to 
 obtain a public hearing.^ Though he could not foresee what was to 
 be the issue, and was far from amusing himself with any false hopes, 
 yet trust in God and in his truth raised him even nc v above all fear, 
 and regarding himself simply as an instrument of that truth, he confi- 
 dently expected that it would come forth triumphant out of every con- 
 flict. ''Assuredly — says he in a letter to Prague — Christ is witli 
 me as a strong champion ; therefore fear I not what the enemy may 
 do to me." He says, speaking of the plots of his enemies : '* I fear 
 nothing ; for I hope that, after a great conflict, will ensue a great 
 victory, and after the victory a still greater reward, and a still greater 
 discomfiture of my enemies." ^ 
 
 Relying upon the expectation that he would be permitted to speak 
 before the assembled council, he availed himself of his leisure at Con- 
 stance in preparing several discourses which he meant to deliver on that 
 occasion. Accordingly we find a discourse in which he designed to 
 give an account of his faith.^ lie testified in it his assent to the church- 
 confession of faith ; appealing to the fact that the Apostles' Creed had 
 been inscribed by him on the walls of Bethlehem chapel."* He declares 
 too, that it was not his design to teach anything contrary to the deci- 
 sions of the general councils, or contrary to the ancient canon and the 
 authority of the approved church teachers ; always presupposing, how- 
 ever, that they asserted nothing but what was contained, implicit e or 
 explicite, in the sacred Scriptures.^ And since his disputes on the 
 matter of indulgence had given occasion to the charge brought against 
 him by some, that he did not acknowledge the common fund of the 
 merits of the saints ; since he was accused of contending against the 
 veneration of the saints, their intercession, the veneration of Mary, he 
 vindicates himself, as he could with truth and propriety do, against all 
 such accusations. With regard to several of these doctrines, he was 
 not conscious as yet of the contradiction in which they stood with his 
 biblical principles. All this would, in time, have more clearly devel- 
 oped itself to his understanding if he had been permitted to continue 
 his labors for a longer period ; and as to that matter, his opponents 
 may doubtless have seen, more distinctly than he himself did, to what 
 his principles were leading. With regard to several other points, which 
 also had something to rest upon in the purely christian consciousness, 
 he never perhaps would have been led to oppose the doctrine of the 
 
 ^ Huss remarks of one of the knights : ^ De fidei suae elucidatione. 
 
 D. Latzeinbock injunxit mihi, quod ante * Symlmluni plebem docui, et ipsum in 
 
 adventum regis nihil attentem quoad act- paricte capcUae, in qua praedieavi, de- 
 
 us. Et spero. quod respondcho in publica scribere praccepi vulgariter. 0pp. I; fol. 
 
 audicnria. Ibid. cp. 5. Observing that 51, 2. 
 
 men feared his public answer, he adds : ° Veneror etiam omnia concilia gene- 
 
 Quam spnro de dei gratia, quod sim earn ralia et specialia, decreta et decretales, et 
 
 consecuturus, dum rex Sigismundus ad- omnes leges, canones et constitunones : de 
 
 fucrit. Ibid. ep. 6. quanto consonant explicite vel implicite 
 
 2 Ibid. Icgi dei. Ibid. fol. 48, 2. 
 
824 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 church even by a still further development of his principles ; for, in 
 defining the doctrine of the community of saints, a doctrine which he 
 also believed was taught in the New Testament (Eph. 4: 3,15. 1 Cor. 
 8, 4 ff.), he says : " This communion of the saints is a participation 
 in all the good which belongs to all the members of the mystical body 
 of Christ, so long as they are found in a state of grace." From this 
 he arirues that the dorified saints assist and sustain the elect on the 
 earth, take joy in their repentance and their progress, just as the saints 
 on earth assist those who are passing through the refining process of 
 the purgatorial fire, with their prayers, their good works, their fasts 
 and alms, so that they are more speedily delivered out of this state 
 and brought up to their heavenly home. '* And as I heartily believe 
 — he goes on to say — in this community of saints, and have now pub- 
 licly avowed it with my lips, so I entreat the most gracious Lord Je- 
 sus Christ, who never refuses his grace to the truly penitent, that he 
 would forgive the sin of those who, privately or publicly, have said of 
 me that I denied the doctrine of the intercession of saints, whether in 
 relation to those who go on pilgrimages, or those who have died in 
 grace." He argues this from the fellowship of all the members of the 
 body of Christ with one another, where one sustains the other ; adducing 
 as proof those cases in Scripture where the centurion's intercession with 
 Christ had benefited his servant, and where the Syrophenician woman had 
 hcljied her daughter, and then goes on to argue : " If a saint on earth, 
 still affected with sin, can benefit another believer and the whole church 
 by his intercession, how foolish it would be to say that one who is pres- 
 ent with Christ in ";lorv could not do the same." The second discourse 
 relates to the restoration of peace. lie distinguishes three kinds of 
 peace, — peace with God, with ourselves, and with our neighbor. The 
 first he considers to be the foundation of all other peace. He then 
 makes a like three-fold distinction in speaking of the assembly which 
 had been convoked. for the restoration of peace, describing peace with 
 God as having its foundation in supreme love to God in the church ; 
 peace with ourselves as consisting in this, that the church should gov- 
 ern itself in holiness ; peace with our neighbor, that it should satisfy 
 every neighbor in all that is re(iuisite for his eternal welfare. To defi- 
 ciency in the first, he traces all failure in respect to the last. The 
 worldliness of the church he designates as the ground of corruption 
 and schism ; giving special prominence to the corru{)tion of the clergy. 
 The evil was bad enough already, when they failed in that which con- 
 stitutes the chief end of their vocation, to hold forth the word of God 
 to the laity. When priests neglected this, they were already angels of 
 darkness, clothing themselves like angels of light; servants of Antichrist, 
 not servants of Christ ; and their neglect to study the divine word, their 
 want of fidelity to that word was the source of all the other corruptions, 
 which he then goes on to portray.* Again, as IIuss had been accused of 
 rejecting the authority of church traditions and of the ecclesiastical laws, 
 of disturbing the foundations of ecclesiastical and civil order, it was his 
 
 ' De pace, opp. I, fol. 52 sq. 
 
HUSS BEFORE IIIS IMPRISONMENT IN CONSTANCE. 325 
 
 ■wish to explain, in a discourse before the council, the sense of the 
 propositions really expressed by him and perverted by his opponents. 
 This he did in his discourse on the sufficiency of the law of Christ for 
 the guidance of the church,' where we shall recognize a great deal that 
 corresponds with the doctrines of Matthias of Janow. He begins with 
 saying : " I, an ignorant man, being about to sp'.^ak before the wise of 
 all the world, entreat you by the mercy of Jesus Christ, true God and 
 true man, that you would calmly listen to me. For I know from the 
 words of Nicodemus (John 7: 51) that the law judgeth no man before 
 it hear him and know what he doeth. I, the poorest of priests, will 
 however endeavor, as I have aforetime endeavored, to carry out the 
 Jaw of Christ in myself, by taking heed, so far as the grace of God en- 
 ables me, against revenge, envy, and vain-glory ; since from my heart 
 I strive only for the glory of God, the confession of his truth, the ban- 
 ishment of all evil thoughts against my neighbor, and the defence of 
 the law of Christ. For I am bound carefully, humbly, and patiently 
 to defend the most excellent law of Christ, as Christ himself and his 
 disciples did the same." " As I have often said before — he adds — 
 so now too I solemnly protest, that I never have and never will perti- 
 naciously affirm anything which is contrary to a truth of faith. I hold 
 firmly all the truths of faith, as I have ever firmly held them and am 
 resolved that I will ever firmly hold them ; so that, rather than defend an 
 error opposed to them, I would prefer, hoping in the Lord and with his 
 help, to suffer a terrible punishment of death ; nay, sustained by the grace 
 of God, I am ready to give up this poor Hfe for the law of Christ. As I 
 have in my academical answer and acts and in my public preaching 
 often submitted, so now too I submit and will in the future humbly sub- 
 mit myself to the order of this most holy law, to the atonement by the 
 same, and to obedience to it ; ready to retract anything whatever that 
 I have said, when I am taught that it is contrary to truth." In the 
 prosecution of his theme he takes notice of an objection, nan^ely that, 
 according to the above supposition of the sufficiency of the law of Christ, 
 all other laws would be superfluous, and ought therefoore to.be done 
 away with. He disposes of this objection by referring all other laws 
 to this one law, by holding that they are to be regarded) only as de- 
 pendant on the latter, their force consisting in tlxeir harmpny and cor- 
 respondence with the same. All other laws were^ in their principle, 
 contained implicite in this law, were only the evolufion of this law, or 
 simply designed to establish and promote its claims in all circumstances 
 and relations ; therefore, subservient to.it. '.'Human laws — says be 
 — are included in the divine law ; nay, they, are themselves the law 
 of Christ in so far as they are subservient to this law." Of the 
 " canon law," he remarks that it w^s partly derived from the divine 
 law, and partly akin to the civil law, and included in both these pa,rts. 
 Civil laws had been created b^ occasion of the sins of mankind, for the 
 purpose of securing forcibly the state of justice in the commonwealth, 
 so far as it concerned ea,r-thly goods ; while the evangelical law was 
 
 ' De sufficientia legis Christi ad regendam ccclesiam. 
 
 VOL. r. 28 
 
326 HISTORY OF TnEOLOGT AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 designed for the preservation of goods in the kingdom of grace. Ac- 
 cordingly he is of the opinion that everything else should be made sub- 
 servient to Christianity ; because the trades, professions, and liberal arts 
 should all be regulated with reference to the law of Christ as the highest 
 end, should be subservient to that law ; the trades and professions, ia 
 preparing what is requisite for the supply of bodily wants ; the liberal 
 arts, in promoting the understanding of the Holy Scriptures.' But the 
 exj»ectationof IIuss, that he would have liberty to speak freely before 
 the assembled council, was not fulfilled. The intrigues of his enemies ; 
 the tickets sent about, by his friends or his enemies, announcing that 
 he would ai)pear and preach in public on a certain Sunday ;2 the fear 
 that lluss might escape from Constance, a rumor to this effect having 
 alreadv got abroad ;•'' the uncompromising zeal with which he unfolded 
 and explained his princij)les before all who visited him in his place of 
 abode ; all these things cooperated to bring it about that, on the 28th 
 of November, 1414, lluss was deprived of his liberty. 
 
 On that day, towards noon, an embassy from the pope and cardinals, 
 consisting of the bishops of Augsburg and Trent, the burgomaster of 
 Constance, and the lord Hans of Baden, visited lluss, with whom his 
 
 ' De suflBc. leg. Christi, opp. I, fol. 44, assuredly the most certain testimony of 
 
 2 sq. his innocence. As everything was raked 
 
 ' It was an announcement of this sort, up which could possibly be made use of 
 
 that whoever would come to church to against him, as there was so great a desire 
 
 hear him on this particular Sunday, should especially to smooth over the affair of 
 
 have a ducat. Master Cardinalis of Kein- his imprisonment, they certainly would 
 
 stein, who reports the fact, does not him- not have neglected to mention any such 
 
 self decide, whether this was done by a attempt of Huss to escape, if such a thing 
 
 friend or an enemy ; Alias nescitur, an had in any way been possible. In parti- 
 
 amicus vel inimicus heri intimavit in ec- cular, his violent enemy, the already men- 
 
 desia. quia IIus dominica proxima prae- tioned bishop John of Leitomysl, who 
 
 dicabit ad clerum in ecclesia Constantien- spared no pains in bringing together facts 
 
 si, ct cuilibet praesenti dabit unum duca- to justify his conduct towards Huss would 
 
 tum. Opp. I, fol. 58, 1; ep. 4. And among never have omitted to take notice of tliis 
 
 the articles of complaint afterwards brought flight. But all he has to say against Huss 
 
 against Huss, one was that he had preach- in this regard, is that he preached publicly 
 
 ed openly. V. d. Ilerdt, IV, p. 213. at Constance. But even this could be 
 
 ^ It is plain how this rumor arose when disputed by the knight of Chlum, who so- 
 we compare wbat Palacky (HI, 1, p. 321 lemnly afhrmcd that Huss had never left 
 note) has communicated from the manu- his quarters during the whole time of his 
 script report of Peter of Mladenowic, the abode in Constance. He denies, quod 
 freshest and most trustworthy witness, who ipse Hus a tempore adventus sui ad banc 
 was at tbat time in the vicinity of Huss. civitatem usque ad diem et tempus capti- 
 A hay-wagon covered with canvas had ritatis suae unum passum extra domum 
 left the city and afterwards returned with- hospitii cxiisset (V. d. Hardt, IV, 213). 
 out the covering. Hence it was subse- It is plain, therefore, — and the same thing 
 quently noised al^road that Huss had been has been already shown by Palacky in the 
 concealed under the canvas. The canon- passages cited on a former page — how 
 ical Ulrich of Keichenthal, and the court- entirely without foundation the story about 
 martial Dacher, in their histories of the the attempt of Huss to escape is reprc- 
 council of C'Onstancc, are cited as witness- senteil by Aschbach, as a credible one in 
 68 of the flight of Huss. To say nothing his History of the Emperor Sigismund, 
 of the confusion of dates in the former, it (H, 32) ; not to mention, that he describes 
 is easy to see how he may have been de- it as having occurred at a time when it 
 ceivcd l)y the rumor; and their histories, could not have occurred, viz., in the inter- 
 having been drawn up long after the time val between the appearance of Huss before 
 of the events, are on this account the less the papal chancery and his return to his 
 worthy to be relied on as vouchers for quarters ; for, as we have seen, no such 
 facts. The silence of Huss and of his ac- return ever took place, 
 cuscrs with regard to any such event is 
 
SEIZURE AND IMPRISONMENT OF HUSS. 327 
 
 faithful fricnrl the knight of Chhim happened then to be present. The 
 envoys tohl him it was now agreed to give him the hearing which he 
 had so often demanded, and he was invited to follow the embassy into 
 the pope's palace. The knight of Chlum, who at once saw through the 
 motives of the whole arrangement, rose with indignation and exclaimed : 
 Such a violation of the honor of the emperor and of the holy Roman 
 empire was not to be tolerated. The emperor had given his own word 
 to Huss that he should obtain a free hearing at the council. He him- 
 self, who had received it in charge to watch over the safety of Huss, 
 was responsible for that charge and bound to see that nothing was done 
 against the emperor's word. He could not permit this, and must pro- 
 test against such a proceeding. The cardinals would do well to con- 
 sider what they were about, and not suppose that they could be allowed to 
 trifle with the honor of the emperor and of the empire. The bishop 
 of Trent here interposed : They had no bad intentions whatever. 
 Everything should be done in peace ; they wished only to avoid mak- 
 ing a stir. Huss now took up the word and declared that he had 
 not come there to appear before the pope and Roman court, but to ap- 
 pear before the whole assembled council, to give in their presence an 
 account of his faith ; yet he was ready to appear and testify of his 
 faith also before the cardinals. Though they used force against him, 
 still he had a firm hope in God's grace that they never would succeed 
 in inducing him to fall from the truth. Saying this, Huss followed the 
 embassy. On the lower floor, he was met by the mistress of the house, 
 who took leave of him in tears. Struck with a presentiment of death, 
 and deeply moved, he bestowed on her his blessing. Mounting on 
 horseback he proceeded, with the embassy and the knight of Chlum, to 
 the court. The prelates, fearing a movement on the part of the people, 
 had taken care that the city magistrates, who were completely subser- 
 vient to the council, should place soldiers in the neighboring streets, 
 so that if necessary the step might be carried through by force. When 
 Huss appeared before the chancery, the president of the college of car- 
 dinals said : It was reported of him that he publicly taught many 
 and grievous heresies, and disseminated them in all Bohemia. The 
 thing could not be allowed to go on so any longer ; hence he had been 
 sentlfor, with a view to learn from himself how the matter stood. To 
 this Huss rephed, that such was his mind, he would prefer to die 
 rather than to teach one heresy, not to say mani/ ; and the very rea- 
 son for which he had come there was to make himself answerable to 
 the council and to recant if he could be convicted before it of holding 
 any error. The cardinals expressed their satisfaction at the temper of 
 mind here manifested by Huss. They then adjourned, leaving Huss 
 and Chlum under the surveillance of the men at arms. About four 
 o'clock in the afternoon they again assembled in chancery, and several 
 Bohemians were also in attendance, both enemies and friends of Huss : 
 among the former, Paletz and Michael de Causis ; among the latter, 
 the aTready named John Cardinalis. The former did their utmost to 
 prevent Huss from being set at Hberty ; and having gained their ob- 
 ject, burst into a loud murmur of applause, crying out insultingly to 
 
328 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 Hu?s : " Now we have yon, nor shall you escape till yon have 
 paid the uttermost farthinnr." That John of Reinstein, was al- 
 ready well known as a skilful diplomatist, who had frequently been 
 employed by King Wenzel in transacting business with the Roman 
 chancery. Ilenco he is said to have derived his appellation Cardinalis, 
 which was first a nick-name, but afterwards retained by him. Paletz 
 now reminded him of the injury done to his reputation by his connec- 
 tion with the Hussite heresy : he who once enjo^^ed so much influence 
 with the cardinals, had now become a mere cij)her. The master rej*lied : 
 " Keep your pity for yourself; if you knew any evil of me, you might 
 have cause to pity me." And thus they separated. Towards evening, 
 it was intimated to Chlum that he might retire to his lodgings ; Huss 
 must remain there. Filled with indignation, Chlum hastened away to 
 the pope, who happened to be still present in the assembly. He over- 
 whelmed him with reproaches that he had dared thus to trifle with the 
 word of the emperor, that he had thus deceived him. He held up to him 
 the inconsistency between his conduct and his promises ; for he had 
 assured him and another Bohemian, his uncle Henry of Latzembock, 
 that Huss should be safe, even though he had killed the pope's brother. 
 The pope, however, exculpated himself by saying that he had nothing 
 to do with the imprisonment of Huss. He referred to the cardinals 
 as responsible for the whole transaction. "You know very well — 
 said he — the terms on which I stand with them." And true enough 
 it was, indeed, as may be gathered from the preceding narrative, that 
 the pope stood entirely at the mercy of the cardinals, and in his present 
 dubious position was compelled to comply with all their wishes. He 
 certainly had much more to do in looking after his own personal inter- 
 ests than after the conformity of others to the orthodox faith. The 
 same night Huss was conducted to the house of a canonical priest in 
 Constance, where he remained eight days under the surveillance of an 
 armed guard. On the (3th of December he was conveyed to a Do- 
 minican cloister on the Rhine, and thrown into a narrow dungeon filled 
 with pestiferous effluvia from a neiirhborini]: sink. 
 
 The knight of Chlum did not cease to complain of the violation 
 done to the emperor's safe-conduct. He immediately reported the 
 whole proceeding to the emperor. The latter expressed his indigna- 
 tion at it, demanded that Huss should bo set free, and threatened to 
 break into the prison by force, if the doors were not voluntarily thrown 
 open.i On the 24th of December, Chlum, in the name of the empe- 
 ror, publicly posted up a certificate, declaring, in the most emphatic 
 language, that the pope had been false to his promise, that he had 
 presumed to insult the autliority of the emperor and of the empire, by 
 paying no regard whatever to the emperor's demands. When the 
 emperor himself should come to Constance, and it was announced that he 
 might be expected the next day, it would be seen what his indigna- 
 tion was at learning of such violation of his majesty .2 After such 
 
 ' V. (\. Ilanlt, IV, papr. 26. detentio et captio dicti IIus est facta con- 
 
 ' Cliluni says in tliis declaration: Qua- tra rciris omniniudaMi voluntatom, cum sit 
 
 propter e^jo regio nomine manifesto, (^uud in couteniptum suorum salvi conductus et 
 
chlum's protest against the imprisonment of iiuss. 329 
 
 declarations it may well be a^ked, what did the emperor really mean 
 by all this ? How far was he in earnest ; and how far merely acting a 
 part and pretending anger from motives of policy ? That he had an 
 interest in representing himself to be more annoyed and angry, than 
 he really was, and in uttering threats which he never meant to fulfil, 
 is evident. For it behooved him to do all he could to remove from 
 himself the reproach of a want of good faith, ^ and to soothe the highly 
 irritated temper of the important party of Huss in Bohemia, and of 
 the knights who espoused his cause most decidedly. But still there is 
 no evidence from facts to justify any such supposition. For, if the 
 emperor took no further steps to procure the release of Huss, still 
 this would not amount to a proof of his insincerity. If he did not do 
 this, he did something else. He had an honest intention to abide by 
 his imperial word ; he was at first really annoyed, that it had been 
 presumed so grievously to violate it ; and he was supposed to have suf- 
 ficient freedom of mind and firmness of character to defy the spirit of 
 the times, so far as to carry through what he had considered to be just 
 and right, in spite of the authority which was held to be the most sacred 
 in the church. Indeed, Pope John afterwards particularly brought 
 it forward, as we have mentioned on a former page, in complaint of 
 the emperor, and in exculpation of his own flight from Constance, that 
 the emperor restrained the liberty of the council in transacting busi- 
 ness relative to the faith, and would not let justice have its course. 
 But, leaving the emperor's declarations entirely out of view, we should 
 certainly take into account the great influence which the power of the 
 church exercised over him. When, on the 1st of January, a deputa- 
 tion of the council appeared before the emperor, and declared to him 
 that he ought not to interfere in transactions relative to matters of 
 faith, that the council must have its full liberty in tlie investigation of 
 heresies, and in its proceedings against heretics, Sigismund no longer 
 ventured to resist, and promised the council ^ that he would allow 
 them all liberty and never interpose his authority in these matters.^ 
 In truth, had the emperor been disposed to insist farther on the liber- 
 ation of Huss, it might easily have led to consequences most perilous 
 to the future proceedings of the council. The pope might have taken 
 advantage of this to gain over a large party to his interests, and the 
 seeds of schism, which, as we have before seen, were already present 
 in the council, would doubtless have gone on to multiply, till they 
 brought on an open breach, and, perhaps, a breaking up of the coun- 
 cil. There is certainly much that is true in the vindication of himself 
 by the Emperor Sigismund against the Bohemian estates, who espoused 
 the cause of Huss, when, in the year 1417, he writes : " If Huss had, 
 
 protectionis imperii facta, eo quod pro ^ If the imperial salvus conductus had 
 tunc dictus dominus meus a Constantia been nothing but a pass made out by the 
 longe distabat, et si interfuissct, nunquam emperor, as modern historical sophists as- 
 hoc permisisset. Cum autem venerit, qui- sert, there would, indeed, have been no 
 libet sentire debebit, ipsum de vilipensione need of all this, 
 sibi et suae et imperii protectionis ac salvo ^ V. d. Har-dt, IV, pag. 32. 
 illata conductui, dolorosius molestari. V. 
 d. Hardt, IV, p. 28. 
 
 28* 
 
830 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. * 
 
 in the first instance, come to him, and had gone -svith him to Con- 
 stance, his affiiir would perhaps have had a quite different turn. And, 
 God knows, that we experienced on his account and at his foil, a 
 sorrow and pain too great to be exi)ressed by words. And all the 
 Bohemians that were then with us certainly knew, how we interceded 
 for him, and that several times, seized Avith indignation, we left the 
 council. Nay, on his account, we went away from Constance, till 
 they declared to us, If we would not allow justice to be executed at 
 the council, they knew not what business they had to be there. Thus 
 ■we verily thought that we could do nothing further in this aifair. 
 Nor could we even speak about it, for had we done so, the council 
 would have entirely broken up." ^ 
 
 The preliminary examinations of the process against Huss were now 
 to begin, in the order in which the complaints had been brought against 
 him by Paletz, Michael de Causis, and others ; and for this purpose, 
 on the 1st December, a committee was nominated, which consisted of 
 the patriarch John, of Constantinople, the bishop John, of Lubeck,2 
 and Bernhard, of Citta di Castello. To these men the pope commit- 
 ted the afiair by a constitution in which he already names Huss as a 
 dangerous heretic, who was spreading abroad mischievous errors, and 
 had seduced many ; and charged them to report the result of their 
 examination to the council, that the latter might pass a definitive sen- 
 tence on Huss, in conformity thereto.^ The agreement of these two 
 testimonies is decisive against the statement of Hermann v. d. Hardt, 
 who, following the report of Cerretanus, describes the commission dif- 
 ferently. Huss demanded of the committee a solicitor ; but to a here- 
 tic no such privilege could be granted ; and it was refused him. Huss 
 thereupon said to his judges : " Well, then, let the Lord Jesus bo my 
 advocate, who also will soon be your judge." ^ A severe taunt on the 
 council, was an expression afterwards uttered by a Parisian deputy in 
 connection with another affair, which was to this effect, that if Huss 
 had been allowed an advocate, they would never have been able to*' 
 convict him of heresy. ^ The unhealthy locality of his prison brought 
 upon Huss a severe fit of sickness, fever connected with an affection 
 of the bladder, which it was feared he could not survive. The pope 
 sent him his own body physician ; for it was not desired that he 
 should die a natural death. Throujjrh the intercession of his friends 
 he was permitted to exchange his cell for more airy rooms in the 
 
 * Cochl.ieus, pa}^. 157. carccrc petivi commissarios, ut mihi d.epu- 
 ' Pahu-ky, p. 330 has, after Mladcnowic, tarent procuratorem et advocatum, qui 
 
 bishop of Lehus. promiscrunt ct postca dare nolucruiit, 
 
 ^ liaynaldi annales vol. 1. 1414, s. 10 ff. E<;o coniinisi me domino Jcsu Cliristo, ut 
 
 * Wc take this from the words of Huss ij)se procuret et advocct ct judicet causara 
 himself: Cof^itationem dc ohjiciendis com- meain. Ihid. fol. 72, 2: ep. 49. 
 
 misi domino deo, ad quem appellavi, quern '' Joannes lius hacretieus declaratus et 
 
 judicem, procuratorem et advocatum mihi condemnatus per sacrum concilium genc- 
 
 clegi coram commissariis. expresse dicens: rale si hahuisset advocatum, nun(|uani 
 
 Dominus Jesus meus advocatus sit ct pro- fuisset convictus. Acta in cone. Const, 
 
 curator, (|ui vos omnes hrevi judicahit. circa damnat. Joanu. Turvi. Gerson, opp. 
 
 0pp. I. fol. 71, 2; ep. 46. Further: Item V, pag. 444. 
 sciatis, quod coram testibus et notariis ia 
 
SICKNESS OF IIUSS IN PRISON. 331 
 
 same convent, wliicli was now assigned to him as his prison. Here 
 he was attacked with a new access of that severe distemper, after 
 having spent eight weeks in his prison, as appears from his own 
 words : " I have been a second time dreadfully tormented with an 
 affection of my bladder, which I never had before, and with severe 
 vomiting and fever ; my keepers feared I should die ; and they have 
 led me out of my prison, (probably only for a few moments to enjoy 
 the fresh air)." > His keepers were, for the most part, very kind to 
 him; 2 hence, to show his gratitude, he afterwards composed for them 
 a few papers on practical Christianity. In fetters, and amidst these 
 severe sufferings, he was obliged to draw up his answers to the com- 
 plaints brought against him by Michael de Causis and Paletz. It Avas 
 not without deep pain he found out that they used against him pas- 
 sages from intercepted letters, in part distorted, and familiar expres- 
 sions which he had dropped in conversation with theologians, who had 
 formerly been his friends, and afterwards deserted him.^ IIuss, to 
 whom, as we shall presently see, it was a source of great disappoint- 
 ment and mortification, that he could not succeed in obtaining a hear- 
 mg from the council, had complained of this in a lette*r to Jacobellus, 
 of Misa, and told him that he had learned from the mouth of his ene- 
 mies that he could not obtain a public hearing, except by paying 2000 
 ducats to the people of the Roman court, whom he styled servants of 
 Antichrist. This letter his enemies' spies contrived to get into their 
 hands, as well as a letter by Jacobellus, who reflected severely on the 
 conduct of the council. Both were to be used against him ; and both 
 were laid before him. This system of espionage and the indiscretion 
 of his friends bore heavily on the spirits of Huss, and he writes that 
 this Jacobellus, who was the loudest to warn against hypocrites, was 
 the man who suffered himself to be most deceived by them. Paletz 
 visited him during his first illness as an accuser ; the sufferings of his 
 old friend could not move him to relent. He never spoke to him, 
 in the presence of the commission, but in the harshest language — 
 language calculated to arouse prejudice and suspicion — such as that, 
 since the time of Christ, more dangerous heretics than Wicklif and 
 Huss had not appeared : all that ever attended his preaching were 
 infected with the disposition to deny the doctrine of transubstantiation. 
 Said Huss to him: Sad greeting do you give me, and sadly do you 
 sin against your own soul ! Look ; perhaps, I am to die ; or, should I 
 recover my health, to be burned ; what return will you then get for all 
 this in Bohemia? "4 He speaks of Paletz, generally, as his fiercest 
 
 ' Words of Huss: Cras octo hebdoraae rat, et Paletz ilia antiqua, quae locuti su- 
 
 ernut,4uod Hus positaest ad refectorium. mus ante multos annos, articulat. Ibid. 
 
 • — Nam iterura horribiliter fui vexatus per fol. 72, 2 ; ep. 48. 
 
 calculum, quern nunquam prius passus * In the first letter in which Huss says 
 
 sura, et gravem vomitum et febres. Jam anything about this, the one written during 
 
 custodcs timebant, ne morerer, qui eduxe- his sickness, he writes concerning Paletz: 
 
 runt me de carcere. 0pp. l,fol. 74, 1 et Qui me jacentem in infirmitate coram 
 
 73, 2 • ep. 51. multis salutavit salutatione horribdissiraa, 
 
 * So says Huss himself: Omnes clerici quam postea dicam vobis, si deo placuerit. 
 
 camerae domini papae et omnes custodes Ibid. fol. 71, 2; ep. 46. He quotes his very 
 
 valde pie me tractant. Ibid. fol. 74. 1 ; ep. 52. language, ibid. fol. 68, 2 j ep. 33. 
 
 =* Nam Michael et literas et alia explo- 
 
n 
 
 32 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 enemv, who did him the most injury. He had, for example, strenu- 
 ouslyurged that all the adherents of IIuss should be cited and forced 
 to an abjuration of heresy. IIuss, adverting to this, says : ^ " May 
 God Almighty pardon him ! " ^ The profound impression which the 
 treatment experienced from his former friend made on the tender sen- 
 sibilities of IIuss, appears from several of his letters. '' Never in my 
 whole life — savs he — did I receive from any man harsher words of 
 comfort than from Paletz."2 And, in words of St. Jerome, he de- 
 scribes how beyond all other wrong it must needs wound the heart, to 
 see love converted into hate in one who has the wrong all on his own 
 side.3 In a letter of the 20th of January, 1415, he says : " God 
 has appointed me those for my inflexible enemies, to whom I have 
 shown much kindness, and whom I loved from my very heart." ^ He 
 found himself situated like the Apostle Paul, when he wrote the epis- 
 tle to the Philippians, partly filled with forebodings of death, partly 
 cherishing the expectation that God would by his own almighty power 
 deliver him from the prison, and bring him back again to his flock. 
 However it might turn, he was resigned to the divine will ; as he says 
 in a letter written on the 20th of January, 1415 : " His will be done, 
 whether it please him to take me to himself, or to bring me back to 
 you." 5 "At one time God comforts, at another afflicts me — he 
 writes to John of Chlum — but I hope that he is ever with me in my 
 sufferings." 6 " The Lord delivered Jonas out of the belly of the 
 ^vbale — he says in another letter — Daniel from the hon's den, the 
 three men from the fiery furnace, Susanna from the court of the false 
 witnesses ; and he can deliver me, too, if it please him, for the glory 
 of his name and for the preaching of the word. But, if the death 
 comes, which is precious in the eyes of the Lord, then let the name of 
 the Lord be praised ! " ^ To Peter of Mladenowic he writes : " And 
 by the grace of God, my return to Prague is not a thing impossible ; 
 still I have no desire for it, unless it be according to the will_ of the 
 Lord in heaven." 8 He was filled constantly with a prophetic con- 
 sciousness, that whatever might be the issue of his own case, truth would 
 triumph, and go on to reveal itself more gloriously and mightily ;^ as 
 he says : " I hope that what I have spoken in secret will be proclaim- 
 ed on the housetops." » It is remarkable that this prophetic con- 
 sciousness was reflected also in his dreams so as to react cheerfully 
 upon his feelings. He told the following dreams which he had in the 
 earlier times ot^his imprisonment to the knight of Chlum. He dreamt 
 that certain persons resolved to destroy all the pictures of Christ on 
 the walls of Bethlehem chapel ; and they did it. On arising next 
 
 1 ihjj foi 75 1 ; ep. 54. * See Mikowec, 1. c, Letter 3. In the 
 
 « Ibid fol 74,' 1 ; ep. 52. Latin edition, — opp. 1. fol. 59, 2: ep. 10, 
 
 » He quotes the lanpm^'e of Jerome: —this passa-e is wantin^^ t r , en i 
 Plus vcro in nobis ea tormcnta saeviunt, * Mikowec, Letter 3. Opp. I, fol. 60, 1; 
 
 quae abillis patimur,de quorum mcntibus ep.lO. ^ „ , „^ „ 
 praesumebamus. quia cum damno corporis Opp. I. fol. /3, 2; cp- ^l- 
 
 mala nos cruciant amissac caritatis. Et ' Ibid, f o . 74, 1 ; ep. 52. 
 patet dolor meus ex parte Palctz. Ibid. « Ibid, f o . 66, 2; cp. 29. 
 fol. 71, 2; ep.46. * Ibid. fol. . 2, 2 ; ep. 48. 
 
DREAM OF nuss. 333 
 
 day he beheld many painters, who had drawn more pictures and more 
 beautiful ones than there were before, which he gazed on with rapture. 
 And said the painters to the concourse of people : Now, let the bishops 
 and priests come and destroy those pictures ! And a great multitude ot 
 people in Bethlehem joyed over it, and he rejoiced with them, and 
 amidst the laughter he woke up. And they had indeed already scat- 
 tered it about among many, that they meant to destroy the inscrip- 
 tions on the walls. The knight of Chlum, in his answer to this letter, 
 exhorted him, first of all, to dismiss all these fancies for the present, 
 and whatever else might occupy his mind, and confine his attention 
 simply to one object, namely, how he might best reply to the articles 
 of complaint. But, he added, " The truth, which cannot deceive, for- 
 bids that you should feel any solicitude about this ; " and he refers to 
 Matthew 10: 19. Then, in compliance with the invitation of IIuss, 
 he expounds his dream, as follows: "The picture of Christ painted 
 on the wall of Bethlehem chapel is the life of Christ which we are to 
 imitate ; the immovable words of Holy Scripture, which are there in- 
 scribed, are his words which we are to follow. The enemies of the 
 cross of Christ seek to destroy both in the night, because the Sun of 
 Righteousness has gone down to them by reason of their wicked lives ; 
 and they seek to bring both into obhvion among men. But, at the 
 morning dawn, when the Sun of Righteousness arises, the preachers 
 restore both after a more glorious manner, proclaimirig that which had 
 been said in the ear, and was nearly forgotten, from the housetops. 
 And from all this will proceed great joy to Christendom. And though 
 the " goose " is now brought down by sickness, and may next be laid 
 a sacrifice on the altar,i yet will she hereafter, awaking as it were from 
 the sleep of this life, with Him who dwells in Heaven, laugh and hold 
 them in derision, who are the destroyers at once of Christ's image and 
 of Scripture. Nay, even in this present life, she will, with God's 
 help, still restore those pictures and those words of Scripture to the 
 flock and her friends with glowing zeal." Huss, in his answer assures 
 the knight of Chlum, of his agreement with this explanation, and goes 
 on to say : "• Though Cato tells us, that we ought not to care for 
 dreams, and though God's commandment settles it fast, that we ought 
 not to pry into the interpretation of dreams, yet I hope that the life 
 of Christ, which, by my preaching in Bethlehem, has been transcribed 
 upon the hearts of men, and which they meant to destroy there, first, 
 by forbidding preaching in the chapels and in Bethlehem ; next, by 
 tearing down Bethlehem itself, — that this life of Christ will be better 
 transcribed by a greater number of better preachers than I am, to the 
 joy of the people who love the life of Christ, over which I shall, as 
 the Doctor of Bibrach says, rejoice when I awake, that is rise, from 
 the dead." 2 As we may conjecture from Pope John's letter to the 
 
 * Wc have thus endeavored to make perhaps be rendered : " And though the 
 
 out the sense of the words which were pro- goose, offered upon the altar, is at present 
 
 bably badlv translated into Lathi. depressed on account of the laying off her 
 
 [The Latin words are : Et auca licet in frail flesh, yet hereafter, etc. 
 
 ara posita, nunc posita infirma carne tris- ^ Ibid. fol. 71 ; ep. 44, 45, 46. 
 tabitur, in futuro tamen etc., and might 
 
334 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 commission appointed to inquire into the affair of Huss, it probably 
 had not been intended at the outset to grant liim a pubHc hearing, but 
 they would have preferred to dispose of the matter by private manage- 
 ment ; the council was to give the final decision according to the 
 report of the committee. Tlie proposition was made to Huss, that he 
 should submit to the decision of twelve or thirteen masters. Accord- 
 ing to the prevailing church theory which taught that the individual 
 must renounce his own will, and submit to an authority without him- 
 self, it might be expected that a man would readily consent to fulfil 
 this duty of subordination, in respect also to matters of conviction. 
 But Huss, of course, with the views which he entertained of the rela- 
 tion of every individual to Christ, and of the rights of reason ground- 
 ed in that relation, could never accept such a proposition as that. 
 But he submitted a protest, demanding leave to render an account of 
 his ftiith before the whole council.^ This was the point to secure which 
 the effort his friends were ever most earnestly solicited, and it was 
 one which he hoped, through the support of these friends among the 
 Bohemian knights, he should succeed in securing. He wished, as he 
 expressed it in a petition addressed to the council through the presi- 
 dent of the committee, to have the liberty either to defend his doctrine 
 after the scholastic fashion before the council, or else to preach before 
 them. But he did not expect that the president of that committee 
 •would actually present his petition to the council.s When, after he 
 had submitted his explanations on the several articles, he was asked 
 whether he would defend them, he threw himself in reference to the 
 whole on the decision of the council ; but, without doubt, on the pre- 
 supposition that the council would decide according to the word of 
 God, and in whatever respects he erred, — for, that he had erred in 
 some respects he ever thought to be possible, — would point out his 
 error by that word. So he declared, defending himself, perhaps, 
 against the reproaches of friends, who may have expressed their dis- 
 satisfaction with a submission so liable to misinterpretation.3 '' Behold, 
 I call God to witness, that no other answer seemed to me at that time 
 more suitable ; for, I had written it down with my own hand, that 
 I would defend nothing, pertinaciously, but was ready to be taught 
 by any man."'* He expresses it as his wish, if he should appear 
 before the council, that he might be allowed to have his station near 
 the emperor, so that he could hear and understand him well ; and 
 also near to the knight of Chlum and his other friends, " In order 
 — he writes — that you may hear what the Lord Jesus Christ, my 
 advocate, counsellor, and most gracious judge, will inspire me to speak, 
 and thus whether I am suffered to live, or must die, you may be true 
 and well-informed witnesses, and liars may not have it to say that I 
 deviated in the least from the truth which I preached." s He requests 
 
 ' P»i(l. fol. 74, 1 ; ep. 52. in your cell. But what has been done 
 
 '* Il>i(l. fol. 74, 2; cp. 54. cannot he altered. Il)id. fol. 72, 1 ; ep. 47. 
 
 3 ("hlum had written to him: "Your < Il.id. fol. 72, 2 ; ep. 48. 
 
 friends, especially Jesenic, are troulded * Ibid. ep. 49. 
 
 on account of the answer which you gave 
 
HUS3 DEMANDS A PUBLIC TRIAL. 335 
 
 the knifrlit of Chlum, to ask the emperor that he ml^ht be released 
 from his close confinement, so as to be at liberty to make suitable pre- 
 paration for his public trial. " Pray the emperor — he writes — that 
 for my sake, and for the vindication of the cause of justice and tr\ith 
 to the glory of God and the advancement of the church, he would 
 take me from prison, so that I may have liberty to prepare myself for 
 my public hearing." ^ Huss says, it was particularly urged against 
 him, that he had hindered the announcement of the crusade-bull ; 
 that he had continued for so long a time under the ban, and still per- 
 sisted in saying mass ; that he had appealed from the pope to Christ. 
 This appeal, as he writes, they read out before him ; and with joy and 
 a smile on his lips he acknowledged it to be his.^ When they, further- 
 more, declared that the opinions which he had advanced, and of which 
 we have already spoken, concerning the right of princes to deprive 
 the clergy of property which they abused, were heretical, Huss de- 
 sired an opportunity of speaking on this particular point with the em- 
 peror. He might be indulging the erroneous idea that he could come 
 to an understanding with him on these points ; that he could satisfy 
 him that he was here defending the interest of the state against the 
 claims of the hierarchy. The knights, says he, have only to represent 
 to the emperor, that if this article should be condemned as heretical, 
 he would be obliged to condemn the acts of his father, Charles IV, 
 and his brother, Wenceslaus, who had taken away temporal goods 
 from the bishops.^ He wished that his writings in relation to these 
 points might be communicated to the emperor, all that he had said 
 concerning the dotation of Constantino, and on the argument to prove 
 that tythes were nothing but alms ; ^ and he was anxious also that the 
 emperor should read his answers to the 45 articles of Wycklif.^ He 
 would be glad to have just a single interview with the emperor before 
 he should be condemned ; since he had come there by his will and 
 under the promise of a safe-conduct,^ glad if the emperor could be 
 induced to show pity to his own birth-right, and not suffer it to be in- 
 vaded with impunity by a malignant foe, (by which he may have 
 meant Paletz or Michael de Causis). In another letter he expresses 
 the same wish, that, in case he obtained a public hearing, the emperor 
 would not suffer him to be remanded to prison, but allow him hberty 
 to consult with his friends, and say something to the emperor which 
 might be of benefit to Christendom, and to the emperor himself.^ But 
 it must be evident that these hopes and wishes rested on a slender 
 foundation, when we fairly consider the emperor's relation to the 
 church. And Huss himself, too, sometimes perceived, no doubt, that 
 after what had transpired he had nothing to expect from the emperor 
 in relation to these matters; for he thus writes, in one of his letters, "I 
 am surprised that the emperor has forgotten me, and that he does not 
 
 ' Ibid. fol. 74, f ; ep. 53. ' Sub sua promissione, ut salvus ad Bo- 
 
 Ibid. fol. 73, 1 ; ep. 49. hemiam redirem ; ibid. ep. 54, foL 75, 1 — 
 
 ^ Ibid. fol. 74, 2; ep. 54. a proof how far men were from supposing 
 
 * See above, the document cited on this at that time that the emperors instrument 
 point. yras a mere passport. 
 
 * Ibid. fbl. 74, 1 j ep, 51. ' Ibid. fol. 73, 1 ; ep. 49. 
 
386 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRIXE. 
 
 speak a word for me ; and, perhaps, I shall be condemned before I 
 can have a word with him. Let him look to it himself whether this is to 
 his honor." In the midst of his own trials, Huss was still tenderly 
 ilive to the interests of his friends. He besought the knight of Chlum 
 CO use his influence with the Bohemian knights to bring it about, that 
 a citation to the adherents of Huss, which had been issued at the in- 
 stigation of Paletz. should be revoked. He expressed the solicitude 
 wliich he felt for his friends in Constance, particularly for the master 
 of lleinstein ; fearing that, by their too free language, they might bring 
 themselves into difficulty, lleinstein should be cautious, he wrote to 
 liis friends : for those whom he considered to be his friends were more 
 probably spies. He had heard it remarked by the commission, that 
 John Cardinalis wanted to defame the pope and the cardinals, by in- 
 sinuating that they were all guilty of simony. It would be his advice 
 that he should keep himself as closely as possible attached to the em- 
 peror's court, lest they might get possession of his person as they 
 had done of himself.i To the knight of Chlum he wrote, entreating 
 him not to be disheartened at the great expenses which he was obliged 
 to incur at Constance. " If God delivers the goose from her con- 
 finement, rely upon it, that you shall never have cause to regret the 
 expense you have been at."^ In his confinement, Huss composed 
 several small treatises of doctrine and ethics ; either for immediate 
 practical use, as the little tracts which he wrote at the request of his 
 keepers for their special benefit, and that of others in like circumstan- 
 ces ; 3 or, for the purpose of testifying his faith in opposition to prevail- 
 ing suspicions : his short tracts on the Ten Commandments ; on the 
 Lord's Prayer ; on mortal sin : on marriage ; on the knowledge and 
 love of God ; on the seven mortal sins ; on penance ; on the sacrament 
 of the body and blood of Christ. In all his writings, Huss was accus- 
 tomed to make great use of the church fathers, and displays extensive 
 reading in that field. The writings just mentioned abound in this sort 
 of learning, and yet he was totally in want of books. At first he had 
 not even a bible ; and was obliged to ask his friends to procure him 
 one.'* He says, indeed, that he had brought with him the Sentences 
 of the Lombard and a Bible ; but he could not have taken them with 
 him into his prison.^ Yet his citations from these books are so minute- 
 ly correct, that we can hardly suppose Huss depended wholly upon 
 his memory. It is probable, therefore, that he always had by him a 
 collection of excerpts, made in the time of his earlier studies. In his 
 ex})Osition of the Ten Commandments, we may notice as one thing 
 serving to mark the peculiarity of his theological point of view, that 
 he applied the command to keep holy the Sabbath-day, literally to 
 Sunday. Worthy of notice, too, is his spiritual conception of holiness, 
 which he represents as consisting in the perfect knowledge of the Tri- 
 une God and of Christ as man, from which knowledge proceeds love ; 
 
 ' Ihid. fol, 75, 1 ; ep. 54. Christi, de Matrimonio, copied bj Petei 
 
 ' Ihid. f(»l. 74, 1 ; ep. 51. of Mlfidcnowic. 
 
 =» He requests the KniL'ht of Chlum to * Ihid. fol. fol. 29. 2 — 44, 1. 
 
 have his tracts dc Mandatis, de corporo * Ibid. fol. 74 ; ep. 52 and 53. 
 
HUSS COMPOSES THACTS IN PRISON. 337 
 
 "wlience the saints love God sn])remoly ; and from love proceeds joy ; 
 and from knowledge, love, and joy, yiroceeds jierfect satisfaction.' All 
 the four principal mysteries of the Christian faith are set forth hy hira 
 in his tract on the Lord's supper : the mystery of the trinity ; the 
 doctrine of divine foreknowledi^e and predestination,^ (whence it is 
 evident what importance was attached by IIuss to the doctrine of ab- 
 solute predestination) ; the doctrine of the incarnation of the divine 
 Word ; the doctrine of the body and blood of Christ in the holy supper. 
 The devout remembrance of the sufferings of Christ constitutes, ac- 
 cording to the view which he here expresses, the spiritual participa- 
 tion of the Lord's supper.^ He declares it to be sufficient for the faith 
 of the simple, to believe that the true body and the true blood of 
 Christ are in the holy supper — the body in which he was born, in 
 which he suffered, rose from the dead, and ascended to heaven. He 
 expressly testifies here his belief in transubstantiation, which term he 
 employs. He asserts that, from the beginning, he had taught in his 
 sermons the transformation of the bread, and never the opposite. He 
 compares the perversion of his language by his enemies with the per- 
 version of Christ^s words by the Pharisees. Only the crass expres- 
 sions relating to certain sensuous affections to which the body of Christ 
 was supposed to be subject in the Lord's supper, he rejects ; declaring 
 that all such affections related only to the species of the bread and 
 wine, — where the doctrine de accidentihiis sine suhjecto evidently lay 
 at bottom — that doctrine which, as we have seen, Wicldif, from his 
 own particular theological and philosophical position, condemned with 
 peculiar abhorrence. It is to be remarked that Huss considers the 
 passage in John vi, as also referring to the outward participation of the 
 Lord's supper ; on the ground of which interpretation the Hussites 
 afterwards restored, as the ancient church had instituted, the commu- 
 nion of infants. Like Matthias of Janow, Huss, too, encouraged the 
 frequent participation of the Lord's supper among the laity ; and he 
 found occasion to complain that even the rule prescribing the act of 
 communion once a year was not observed ; that many received the 
 Lord's supper only at the last extremity, and several not at all. He 
 says of such : " How shall these people be ready to die for Christ, 
 who have no pleasure in the food which is best for them, and which 
 has been provided for them by infinite grace and love, to enable them 
 to overcome all evil ? " 
 
 Meantime, after Huss had left Prague, another controversy arose, 
 by occasion of which the antagonism to the dominant church could not 
 fail to be still more decidedly expressed. This controversy related to 
 a point which Huss had never as yet made a subject of particular in- 
 quiry. After his own removal, the most important theologian of his 
 party was his friend .Jacob of Misa, or Mies, a parish priest attached 
 to the church of St. Michaels, commonly called, on account of his di- 
 minutive stature, Jacobellus. This person came out openly in opposi- 
 
 ' Ibid. fol. 69, 2 ; ep. 37. dium consequitur quietatio. Ibid. fol. 31, 
 
 ' Et cognitionem. dilectionem ct gau- 1. ^ Ibid. fol. 38, 2. 
 
 VOL. V. 29 
 
338 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 tion to the T\-itlilioldIng of the cup from the laity ; an.l insisted that, by 
 the institution, the holy supper in both forms should be extended to the 
 laity also. It was for a long time currently reported tliat a certain Pe- 
 tar, originally from Dresden, who had been driven, as an adherent to 
 Waldensian doctrines, from his native country and come to Prague, 
 •was the original means of leading Jacobellus to introduce this point 
 also among°the matters requiring reform. This story is, in itself, ex- 
 tremely improbable. If we consider that, in the writings of Matthias 
 of Janow, the necessity to the laity of a complete participation of tlie 
 Lord's supper is assumed ; and if we consider the great influence Mat- 
 thias had on the whole movement, we shall find it impossi1)le to l)elieve 
 that a man who might be a personal disciple of Matthias of Janow,i 
 •vvho at any rate must have been, in spirit and bent, one of his disciples, 
 that such a man could need the influence of an unknown Waldensian 
 to direct his attention to a subject which had already been deemed of 
 so much importance by his own master. In contemporaneous writings 
 not a word is to be found concerning this Peter of Dresden-; in the con- 
 troversial tracts on this subject no mention is made of him ; and yet it 
 would from the first have been hailed as a very welcome fact, by the 
 defenders of the withdrawal of the cup, if they had the least reason 
 •vrhatever to trace the first attacks of this practice to the influence of a 
 man who belonged to a sect so decried. This story is found for the 
 first time in writings of opponents to the Hussite party some score of 
 years later.s Whether such a person as Peter of Dresden ever existed 
 or not, his history at all events lies altogether in the dark, and we have 
 nothing to do wilh him here ; but it does not admit of a question that 
 the influence proceeded from Matthias of Janow by which Jacobellus 
 was led, first in disputations, to come out openly, somewhere near the 
 close of the year 1414, against the withholding of the cup. His argu- 
 ments convinced many ; and he began to reduce his theory to practice 
 as a parish priest, and to distribute the holy supper once more, in both 
 forms, to the laity. Among the adherents of Huss, a controversy arose 
 on this point ; for the more practical bent of his disposition had always 
 kept him from entering into this question. His opinion was now re- 
 quested. The principle on which he uniformly went, of deciding every 
 question by the law of Christ as laid down in Holy Writ, \U)uld soon 
 brin" him to a decision of this question after his attention had once 
 beeiT directed to it, and also to a declaration of his views ; nor did he 
 hesitate to declare them openly, though he could not but foresee that, 
 by so doing he would probably injure his own cause.3 Even before 
 his imprisonment, Huss had composed a small tract on the question then 
 
 ' As Palacky, p. 332 note — remarks, the people that the Lord's Supper should 
 
 Jacobellus, a year before the death of be received in both the forms. The fact, 
 
 Matthias of Janow. in the year 1393, was indeed, brouglit forward to prove tliis, 
 
 a Bachelor in Praf:^ue University. could prove nothinj^ of the sort. It was 
 
 ' Thus it occurs in Aeneas Sylvius Hist, that his disciples in Prague distributed the 
 
 Bohemia, cap. 35, pag. 52. ' elements thus : Patet iste articulus, quia 
 
 ' So already, among the articles of com- jam in Praga sui discipuli ministrant illud 
 
 plaint set forth by Michael de Causis, one sul) utraque specie. Hist, llussi, opp. I, 
 
 was, that at Prague he had preached to fob 6, 1. 
 
HUSS AND THE FLIGHT OF JOHN XXIII. 339 
 
 in dispute ; and from the collected declarations of the New Testament 
 and of the ancient church teachers he came to the conclusion that, al- 
 thouo^h both the body and blood of Christ were present under each form, 
 yet, because Christ would not without special reasons have directed that 
 each kind should be taken separate} ij^ it was permitted and would be 
 profitable to the laity, to take the blood of Christ under the form of the 
 wine.^ 
 
 Meantime, on the 21st of March, occurred that event of wliich we 
 have already spoken, the flight of Pope John, the immediate instru- 
 ment by whom Huss had been deprived of his hberty. This event led 
 to an important change in the situation of the prisoner. Huss perceived 
 from what transpired immediately about him, that something of this sort 
 had occurred. He managed to get information of the movements pro- 
 duced by this event in the council. He ascribed them all to one cause, 
 that men were attempting to effect an innovation in the kingdom of God 
 by measures of human policy. "The council — he writes — is dis- 
 turbed on account of the flight of the pope, as I believe. The reason 
 is this : I have learned that, in whatever we undertake, God should 
 ever be placed before human reason — a lesson which they have not 
 learned." 2 The pope sent for all his officers and servants to meet him 
 at Schafi'hausen. In consequence of this, Huss was deserted by his 
 keepers. No one was left to provide for his daily wants. He was de- 
 prived of the means of subsistence. He was in constant fear lest the 
 marshal of the pope's court, who was intending to follow his master, 
 would secretly take him away with himself. Late in the evening of 
 Palm Sunday, March 24th, he communicated his fears to the knight 
 of Chlum, and begged him, in conjunction with the Bohemian knights, 
 to take measures to prevent this by requesting the emperor either to 
 send him new keepers, or to set him at liberty, lest he might be to him 
 the occasion both of sin and of shame.3 The Bohemian knights, who, 
 previous to these events had never ceased pressing the emperor to set 
 Huss at liberty, sought to take advantage also of the present juncture."* 
 But the advocates of the hierarchical system exerted themselves to de- 
 feat this purpose ; and after consultation with the council, the emperor 
 delivered Huss over to the surveillance of the bishop of Constance, who 
 at four o'clock the next morning had him removed, in chains, to the cas- 
 
 * Licet et expedit laicis fidelibus sumere nant church — a portion of which has been 
 sanguinem Christi sub specie vini. Nam cited from the manuscript by Palacky — 
 licet corpus et sanguis Christi sit sub utra- shows that the hierarchical party did at 
 que specie sacramentali, tamen Christus the beginning undoubtedly fear that these 
 non sine ratione nee gratis instituit utrum- circumstances might be taken advantage 
 que modum sacramentalem suis fidelibus, of to set Huss at liberty. The words are 
 sed ad magnum profectum. De sanguine as follows : De Hus fuit periculum, ne 
 Christi, opp. I, fol. 43, 2. eriperetur de carceribus ordinis Pracdica- 
 
 ^ Ratio, quia didici, quod omnibus in torum, situati ultra muros civitatis, quia 
 
 factis peragendis sive peractis debet prae- custodes jam erant pauci et remissi ; sed 
 
 poni deus humanae rationi. Ibid. fol. 75, ex diligentia facta et clamore zelatorum 
 
 1 ; ep 55. fidei, ex decreto concilii, praesentatus est 
 
 ^ Ne habeat et peccatum et confusion- ad quoddam castrum et ad carceres domi- 
 
 em de me. Ibid. ep. 56. ni episcopi Constantiensis. Palacky, III, 
 
 * A letter written from Constance to 1, p. 339, note 448. 
 one of the zealous followers of the domi- 
 
340 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DGCTiU.NE. 
 
 tie of Gottleben.i In the castle of Gottleben the situation of IIuss wa3 
 chan'^ed much for the worse. His prison was a tower. In the day- 
 time he was chained, yet so as to be able to move about ; at night, 
 on his bed, he was chained by the hand to a post. Here he no 
 longer experienced that mild treatment from his keepers, ^\hich miti- 
 gated the severity of his former im[)risonment. His friends were not 
 allowed to visit him. New attacks of disease, violent headaches, he- 
 morrhage, colic, followed in consequence of this severe confinement. 
 Speaking of this in one of his later letters, he says : " These are 
 punishments brought on me by my sins, and }>roofs of God's love to me." 2 
 In the midst of these severe trials he wrote, shortly before Easter, which 
 in this year fell on the 31st of March, to his Bohemian friends at Con- 
 stance : '' May the God of mercj^ keep and confirm yoti in his grace 
 and give you constancy in Constance ; ^ for if we are constant we shall 
 witness God's protection over us." " Now for the first time — he 
 writes — I learn rightly to understand the Psalter, rightly to pray, 
 and rightly to represent to myself the suiferings of Christ and of the 
 martyrs. For Isaiah says (28: 19), When brought into straits, we 
 learn to hear — ;4 or, What does he know who has never struggled 
 with temptation ? Rejoice, all of you who are together in the Lord ; 
 greet one another, and seasonably prepare yourselves to partake wor- 
 thily, before the passover, of the Lord's body ; of which privilege, so 
 far as it regards the sacramental participation, I am for the present 
 deprived, and so shall continue to be as long as it is God's will. Nor 
 ought I to wonder at this, when the apostles of Christ and many other 
 saints, in prisons and deserts, have in like manner been deprived of the 
 same. I am well, as I hope in Jesus Christ, and shall find myself still 
 better after death, if I keep the commandments of God to the end." 
 Since the council no longer recognized* as pope Balthazar Cossa, the 
 committee nominated under his administration had no further authority 
 to examine into the affair of Huss, and it was necessary to appoint a 
 new one. This was done on the 6thof A})ril, 1415, and the new com- 
 missioners were Cardinal d'Ailly, Cardinal St. Marci, the bishop of 
 Dola, and the abbot of the Cistercian order. Meantime the cause of 
 Huss assumed a worse aspect on account of the distribution of the sacra- 
 ment under both forms, which now commenced in Prague. This gave 
 rise to the most injurious reports, and the whole blame had to fall upon 
 Huss. The bishop John of Leitomysl, had made great use of these ru- 
 mors to confirm tlie prejudice against Huss, in his report to the council 
 — had stated that the blood of Christ was carried about by the laity in 
 flasks, and that they gave the communion to each other. U})on this, 
 the Bohemian knights present at Constance handed in to the council, 
 on the 13th of May, a paper complaining in the most violent language 
 that, contrary to all justice and in violation of the emperor's word Huss, 
 
 ^ "VVlien Huss in the letter cited says conceal the purpose which he had in view, 
 the bishop of Constance wrote hiin. that * ^1>P- ^i ^^^- ^'^ 2 ; ep 37. 
 he would have nothing to do with him, ^ A play on words : Det vobis coustau- 
 
 either this must have occurred before the tiam in Constantia. 
 agreement entered into with the emperor, * Ibid. fol. 73 } ep. 50. 
 or the bishop must have been seeking to 
 
INTERPOSITION OF THE BOHEMIAN KNIGHTS FOR IIUSS. 341 
 
 without being heard, thougli he had ever declared himself ready to an- 
 swer to the charge of heresy, had been harshly shut up in prison, 
 where he was compelled to lie in fetters and supplied \\ith the most 
 wretched fare, where he had to suffer from hunger and thirst, and it 
 was to be feared must in consequence of this harsh treatment become 
 disordered in mind. They complained, at the same time, of the calum- 
 nious charges set afloat against the Bohemians to the dishonor of their 
 nation, alluding particularly to the statements made by bishop John of 
 Leitoraysl. The 16th of May was fixed upon as the time for acting 
 on this matter ; on which occasion bishop John of Leitomysl defended 
 himself against this accusation and endeavored to prove that he was 
 right in proceeding as he had done against the propagators of the er- 
 roneous doctrines of Wicklif in Bohemia. The Bohemians did not 
 suffer the remarks of the bishop to go unanswered, and once more 
 urged it upon tlie council and the emperor that a free hearing should 
 be granted to Huss. Finally they succeeded in obtaining the promise 
 that Huss should be trasferred tQ another prison in Constance, and that 
 he should be allowed to speak for himself before the council on the 5th 
 of June. The knight of Chlum announced the decree of the council 
 to his friend on the day it Avas passed, the 18th of May. " This is to 
 inform you — he wrote — that the emperor with the deputies of all the 
 nations of the council was this day assembled, that he spoke with them 
 about your affairs, and in particular about granting you a hearing ; 
 and they at last declared themselves of one mind that you should ob- 
 tain a public hearing ; your friends moreover urged that you ought to 
 be in a more pleasant situation, so as to be able to collect and refresh 
 yourself." He then adds, with reference to the impending trial : 
 " Therefore for God's sake, and for the sake of your own salvation, 
 and for the advancement of the truth, may you never be led to swerve 
 from that truth by any fear of losing this poor life. For it is only to 
 promote your own true good that God has visited you with this trial." 
 He then calls upon him, on account of the excitement which the con- 
 troversy on the withdrawal of the cup had created in Bohemia, to ex- 
 press his opinion with regard to that matter on the same sheet, so that 
 in duo time what he had written might be shown to his friends in Bo- 
 hemia. There was a difference among them on this point, and they 
 had agreed to submit the whole to his decision. Huss replied : " As it 
 regards collecting myself, I know not for what purpose I am to collect 
 myself, nor what other condition of mind I should be in ; for I know 
 not to^what end the hearing is to be granted me." Doubtless he had 
 his^ misgivings whether he should obtain, after all, the free hearing 
 which he demanded ; such a hearing as would allow him to express his 
 views before the council in a sermon, or to defend himself, in the way 
 of disputation, against the several charges,— liberties which he had 
 applied for in a petition. It was only in such case that he could need, 
 beforehand, any special collection of mind. ^^ I hope — says he — by 
 the grace of God, that I shall never swerve from the truth "of which I 
 have obtained the knowledge." The impending decision of his fate by 
 the trial before the council, could not induce him to express himself 
 
 29* 
 
842 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 otherwise than he had already done on the question respcctinir the 
 withdrawal of the cup. lie referred to the paper he had hefore drawn 
 up, and added : " I know of nothing else to say, than that the gospels 
 and the epistles of Paul speak decidedly for the distribution of the 
 Lord's supper under hoth the forms, and that it was so held in the 
 primitive church. If it can be done, endeavor to bring it about, that 
 the administration of the cup should be granted by a bull, at least to 
 those who require it from motives of devotion, regard being had to 
 circumstances." • 
 
 It was not until the beginning of the month of June, that ITuss was 
 liberated from his oppressive dungeon at Gottleben, where directly 
 afterwards his ])lace was taken by that Balthazar Cossa, who had first 
 deprived him of his liberty. He was next conveyed to Constance, and 
 a prison assigned to him in a Franciscan convent. Here the council 
 assembled on the 5th of June to investigate his affair, and to hear the 
 man himself, according as it had been promised him. Before liuss 
 was produced, the proceedings were commenced by listening to the 
 articles extracted by his adversaries from his writings ; and they were 
 upon the point of making a beginning tvith the condemnation of these 
 articles. Bat Peter of Mladenowic, secretarv to the kniiiht of Chlura, 
 a man enthusiastically devoted to Huss, hastened to give information 
 of it to the knight his master, and to Wenceslaus of Duba. They 
 speedily reported the case to the Emperor, who at once sent the Pal- 
 grave Louis and the Burgrave Frederic of Nuremberg to the council, 
 directing them to tell the prelates, that before the appearance of Ilusa 
 they should not take a step in his affair, and that they should in the 
 first place lay all the erroneous articles which they found reason to 
 charge against him before the emperor, who would take pains to have 
 them carefully and minutely examined by pious and learned men. 
 The two knights presented to the council the writings, from which the 
 erroneous articles imputed to Huss were said to have been extracted, 
 that the prelates might have it in their power to satisfy themselves 
 whether those articles were really contained, as expressed in the charges, 
 in his writings ; requiring, however, that the same should be returned 
 again into their hands, lest, perchance, it might be deemed right to 
 destroy them as heretical. In fact, it was afterwards reported in many 
 quarters that they were burned.2 When Huss appeared before the 
 council, these writings were placed before him, and he was asked 
 whether he acknowledged them to be his. He said yes ; and declared 
 himself ready to retract every expression in them in which it could be 
 shown that he was in error. A single article was then read. Huss 
 began to defend it, cited many passages from scripture, and referred to 
 the doctrine of the church ; but they exclaimed that all this was noth- 
 ing to the point. Whenever he began to speak he Avas interrupted, 
 and not allowed to utter a syllable. A savage outcry rose against him 
 
 * 0pp. I, fol. 72, 1 ; ep. 47 et 48. mens rcstitueretur. Nam aliqui rlama- 
 
 ' So Huss himself praises his friends bant : Coml)uratur, et praesertim Michael 
 
 for having made this condition : Bene fac- de Causis, quern audivi. Ibid. fol. 69, 1 ; 
 
 turn est, quod postulaveruut, ut cis liber cp. 36. 
 
SECOND AUDIEXCE OF HUSS BEFORE THE COUNCIL. 843 
 
 on all sides. At leni^th, -when IIuss saw that it was of no use, that he 
 could not be heard, he determined to remain silent. This silence wag 
 now interpreted as a confession that he was convicted. Finally, it 
 grew to be too bad ; the moderate men in the assembly could stand it 
 no longer, and as it was impossible to restore order, it was thou;^ht 
 best to dissolve the assembly ; the 7th of June having been fixed uf)on 
 as the time when Huss should have his second hearing. On the 6th 
 of June lluss wrote to his friends : " To-morrow, at noon, I am to 
 answer ; first, whether any one of the articles extracted from ray writ- 
 ings is erroneous, and whether I will pledge myself to abjiu-e it, and 
 henceforth teach the contrary : secondly, whether I will confess that I 
 have preached those articles which it shall be proved on good testimony 
 that I have preached : thirdly, whether I will abjure these. ^lay God 
 in his mercy so order it, that the emperor may be present to hear the 
 words that my gracious Saviour shall be pleased to put in my mouth." 
 He wished to have the privilege of stating his answers in writing. Had 
 this been allowed, he would have expressed himself thus : '' I, John, 
 servant of Christ, will not declare that any of the articles extracted 
 from my writings are false, lest I condemn the declarations of holy 
 teachers, and particularly of St. Augustine. Secondly, I will not 
 confess that I have asserted, preached and believed the articles of 
 which I am accused by false witnesses. Thirdly, I will not abjure, 
 lest by so doing, I subject myself to the guilt of perjury." ' On the 
 7th of June then, at one o'clock, Huss appeared for the second time 
 before the council. On this occasion, the emperor Sigismund was pre- 
 sent, as Huss had ever desired that he should be ; and owing to the 
 hearty sympathy they took in the cause of Huss, the proceedings were 
 also attended by the two above mentioned Bohemian knights, and 
 Peter of Mladenowic. The first accusation, confirmed by many wit- 
 nesses was, that Huss denied the doctrine of transubstantiation. This 
 he could declare with truth, to be a false charge. Cardinal d'Ailly, 
 however, who was a zealous nominalist, engaged in an argument to 
 show that Huss ought, according to his principles, to deny that doc- 
 trine ; for as he held to the objective reality of general conceptions,^ 
 and therefore also to the paneitas a parte rei^ he could not suppose an 
 annihilation of the same in any one case. But Huss would not allow 
 that there was any force whatever in this reasoning, for he was of the 
 opinion, that though the general conception might no longer be really 
 present in a particular substance, still it did not cease on that account 
 to retain its reality in itself, and to be actualized in other particular 
 substances.^ Out of this grew a violent dispute, in which several 
 Englishmen took part, as zealous opponents of the doctrines of Wick- 
 lif. It was insinuated that the phraseology of Huss was suspicious. 
 
 ' Ibid. fol. 65, 2 ; ep. 27. ^ His words : Desinit quidem esse in 
 
 ^ Huss himself explained this in the hoc singulari pane materiali, stantc tali 
 
 sense that general conceptions were the transsubstantiatione, cum ille tunc muta- 
 
 original forms, tirst created by God . Dixi tur, vel transit in corpus Christi, vel trans- 
 
 de essentia coramuni creata, quae est pri- substantiatur, sed nihilominus in aliis sia- 
 
 mum esse creatum communicatum singu- gularibus subjectatur. Ibid. fol. 12, 2. 
 lis creaturis. Ibid. fol. 62, 2 ; ep. 15. 
 
34:4 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTEIXE. 
 
 It was said that like "Wickllf, he was seeking to deceive by his language. 
 AVhatever he tauL'ht must he heresy. The same wild outcries com- 
 menced which had interrupted the first hearing. But the emperor, 
 "who was present, commanded silence ; and during the stillness which 
 succeeded, IIuss took the opportunity to exclaim with a loud voice so 
 that all could hear : '' I should have expected to find more sobriety, 
 order and decency prevailing in sucli an assembly," Said the president 
 of the council, the cardinal archbisliop John de Brogny of Ostia ad- 
 dressing IIuss, "At thy trial in the castle, thou showedst thyself more 
 humble." Huss replied : " Neither was there there any such out- 
 crv." ' Still one of the Englishmen had the justice and good sense to 
 dechire, " that it was better to drop these wranglings about realism 
 and nominahsm, since tliey did not belong to the place, these disputes 
 having nothing to do with the faith ; and the word of Huss ouglit to 
 be believed, when he said that he acknowledged transubstantiation."^ 
 Huss moreover perceived what had given occasion to the perversion of 
 his hmguage by his 'Opponents regarding the doctrine of transubstanti- 
 ation, when following the words of Christ he simply spoke of the foct, 
 that Christ himself is the soul's true bread.3 The dispute on the doc- 
 trine of transubstantiation having come to an end, Cardinal Francis 
 Zabarella took up the word and said to Huss, " Thou knowest, master 
 IIuss, that bv the mouth of two or three witnesses everv word should 
 be established ; but now as thou seest thou hast agamst thee the testi- 
 mony of twenty men or thereabouts, men who ought to be believed, and 
 of the highest consideration, some of whom have themselves heard 
 thee teach, Avhile others testify to what they have heard and to the 
 
 ' On comparing the Ilistoria Ilussi and is sino^ular that the same thing should he 
 
 the several statements in the letters of done also hv Palacky, who is generally so 
 
 IIuss, regarding his trials, there is some exact, unless he found reason for so doing 
 
 difticulty in determining whether tliis oc- in the original record of Mladenowic, and 
 
 curred on his first or his second hearing, in the Bolicmian original text of the let- 
 
 Yov. we can hardly suppose that what ters of Huss, which we can know nothing 
 
 Hifc^s here says, and what the president ahout. To he sure, Huss. in his letter in 
 
 of the council replies to him, occurred Mikowec's collection, (p. 22), remarks that 
 
 twice. But the account of the eye-witness this took place at the first hearing. But 
 
 in the Historia Hussi, who make's no men- we must necessarily correct this statement, 
 
 tion of it at all, leaves no room for us to to avoid a contradiction wliicli would oth- 
 
 suppose, that the above declaration of erwisc occur in the letters of Huss himself, 
 
 Huss was made at the first hearing: for by the earlier and more exact account; for 
 
 h',re it is said expressly that Huss at length this last letter was written on the 26tli of 
 
 remained silent. And, in the letter of June. 
 
 Huss, (ep. 1.5; fol. 62, 2) where everything ^ The words of the Englishman are: 
 
 is exactly related, and in all prol)ahility Quorsum hacc de universalihus disputa- 
 
 imnu'diately after the hearing, what is said tio, rpiac atl fidem nihil facit i Ipse, quan- 
 
 of the dispute concerning the doctrine of turn audio, recte sentit de sacramcnto al- 
 
 transultstantiation, can have occurred, as is taris. Op]) I, fol. 12, 2. 
 evident from comparing the Hist. H., only ^ Huss himself says at his trial: Caete- 
 
 during the second hearing. But this is so rum hoc se fateri, cum archiepiscopus Pra- 
 
 nearly connected with the narrative of gensis omnino prohihuisset uti illo termi- 
 
 what Huss said, and what the ]>resident no panis, tunc se hoc edictum episcopi 
 
 replieil, that we cannot hut regard it as a non potuisse prohare, quia Christus ipse 
 
 very arbitrary procedure, to separate the in VI, cap. Joann. undecies se nominavc- 
 
 two remarks as to the time when they were rit panem angclorum, qui de coelo descen- 
 
 made, and \A&cq one in the first, and the disset, ut toti nuindo vitam daret, sed de 
 
 other in the second hearing, as has been pane materiali se nunquam di.xisse. Ibid, 
 done by V. d. Hardt, (IV, pag. 307). It 
 
\ 
 
 SECOND APPEARANCE OE HUSS BEFORE THE COUNCIL. S45 
 
 common report. And all furnisli tlic stron,u;ost ^rrounds of evidence for 
 their statements. We must therefore believe them. I see not how 
 thou canst still maintain thy cause a.iralnst so many distin;^uished men.'' 
 To this Huss replied : " l^ut I call God and my conscience to witness 
 that I have not so taught, and that it never entered my mind so to 
 teach as these persons have the hardihood to say tliat I have, testify- 
 ing against me what they never heard. Were there a great many 
 more still, I esteem the testimony of my God and of my conscience, 
 higher than the judgments of all my adversaries, about which I do not 
 trouble myself." The cardinal answered : i " We cannot judge by 
 thy conscience, hut must be content with the very firm and confident 
 testimony of these men. For not from any hatred or enmity to thee, 
 as thou affirmest, do they offer this testimony, but they give such rea- 
 sons as betray no sign of hatred, and leave us no room to doubt." 2 
 So strongly biassed is the cardinal, that he cannot or will not see the 
 trace of a spiteful distortion of the words of Huss, even in Paletz, but 
 believes that Huss wrongs him altogether, and that if Paletz had 
 altered the words of Huss, he had altered them into a still milder 
 sense than they had in their original connection. Besides, he felt par- 
 ticularly annoyed that Huss should presume to cast suspicion on Chan 
 cellor Gerson, than whom a more excellent man was not to be found in 
 all Christendom. The next accusation was that Huss had obstinately 
 defended the heretical doctrines of Wicklif. Huss replied, that he 
 had taught neither the errors of Wicklif, nor those of any other man. 
 If Wicklif had taught errors in England, this was the concern of the 
 English. But his resistance to the condemnation of the forty-five ar- 
 ticles of Wicklif was adduced in proof of the charge that he defend- 
 ed his doctrines, to which he rephed : The form in which those ar- 
 ticles were all unconditionally condemned was one to which his 
 conscience would not permit him to assent ; but in particular he could 
 not consent to the condemnation of the article that Constantino had 
 erred in making that dotation, and Sylvester in accepting it. The ar- 
 ticle and also the proposition of which we have spoken on a former 
 page, that a priest chargeable with mortal sin, could not baptize nor 
 consecrate the Lord's supper, he modified by saying that such an 
 one did it in an unworthy manner, and was but an unworthy minister of the 
 sacraments ; and in spite of all the contradictions of his opponents, he 
 asserted that in no other sense was the article to be found in his writ- 
 ings ; and he proved this against Paletz to ocular inspection by com- 
 paring the propositions ascribed to him with his book which was pro- 
 duced. Furthermore he frankly acknowledged that he had not dared 
 to agree in condemning the article which affirmed that tythes were to 
 be considered as alms. Cardinal Zabarella now argued to refute him. 
 He said that " it belonged to the nature of an alms that it should bo 
 given voluntarily, and not by obligation ; but the paying of tythes was 
 
 » [According to the marginal note in the lows, is not Zabarella the Cardinalio Flo- 
 
 Historia Joann. Hus fol. 13, 1, and per- rentinus, hut Peter d' Ailly the Cardinalis 
 
 haps also according to the words them- Cameracensis.] 
 
 selves, the cardinal here, and in what fol- '^ Ibid. fol. 13, 1. 
 
SJ-G HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRIXE. 
 
 founded on an obligation. Zaharclla Avcnt on the principles of ecclesias- 
 tical law ; but IIuss proceeded only on ethical principles ; hence he 
 could not admit the premises in Zarahella's argument, for he maintained 
 that alms-giving too was a matter of moral obligation. ]\Ien were bound, 
 on pain of'~damnation, to observe those six works of mercy which Christ 
 mentions in Matt. 25: 35, 30 ; and yet these are alms. It was a part 
 of the scholastic sophistry of those times, for parties to engage in dis- 
 pute without taking any pains first to settle with each other the differ- 
 ent meaning of terms. Next an English archbishop displayed the sub- 
 tlety of his logic by the following argument against IIuss : From this 
 it would follow that" the poor, who cannot give alms for want of means, 
 must be damned. Huss rephed : That he spoke only of those that had 
 the means. And he went on to assert that the tenths had, in the be- 
 ginning, been an entirely voluntary thing ; and were not made obliga- 
 tory until a long time afterwards. This he proposed to show more at 
 large, but was not permitted. Huss then said that, in general, all he 
 had ever demanded was, that proofs should be drawn from holy Scrip- 
 ture to justify the condemnation of the propositions of Wicklif which 
 were to be condemned. lie entered into a full, calm, and sober ac- 
 count of the whole course of the disputes on the writings of Wicklif 
 and of his own personal concern in the matter,' until the time of his 
 appeal to Christ. The question was then put to him whether the pope, 
 then, had given him leave to break away from his own jurisdiction and 
 appeal to another tribunal; 2 and whether it was permitted to appeal to 
 Christ ? To this Huss replied : " This I openly maintain, before you all, 
 that there is not a more just nor a more effectual appeal than the ap- 
 peal to Christ ; for to appeal means, according to law, nothing but this : 
 in a case of oppression, from an inferior judge to invoke the aid of a 
 higher one. And now what higher judge is there than Christ ? Who 
 can get at the truth of a cause in a more righteoas and truthful man- 
 ner than he ? for he cannot be deceived, neither can he err ? Who 
 can more easily afford help to the poor and oppressed ?" But this was 
 language which the council could not understand ; and it was received 
 with laughter and scorn. Furthermore, it was charged^ against him, 
 that to introduce his heresies among the unlearned and simple, he had 
 given an exaggerated account of the doings at that notorious earth(iuake- 
 council,^ and represented it as a judgment of God in favor of \yicklif ; -< 
 that he had said, as we have observed on a former page, he wished his 
 Boul to be where Wicklifs soul was. In reply to the first, Huss said 
 
 ' Which account we have already avail- •'' See above, page 162. 
 
 ed ourselves of in the preceding narrative. •* Illico ostium ecclesiae fiilmino rup- 
 
 ' The words : Ilabueritne absolution- turn est. ita ut adversarii Widetf acgre 
 
 em? These words niav indeed also mean : sine incommodo evaserint. 0pp. 1, fol. 
 
 Has been absolved by 'the pope ? Yet the 14, 1, As such facts, especially in the 
 
 connection is in favor of the interpretation contests between parties, are very apt to 
 
 ■which I have given in the text; so tiiat be represented in an exaggerated manner 
 
 the question relates to an uttoKvtikov on in tradition according to the passions of 
 
 the part of the pope, or of the so-called the particular individuals, so it is quite 
 
 apostoli ; and this besides is altogether possible that tlie story in the jM-escnt case 
 
 characteristic of the positive spirit of his was somewhat exaggerated as it was told 
 
 judges. among the ^Yicklititcs. 
 
SECOND APPEARANCE OF IIUSS BEFORE THE COUNCIL. 347 
 
 notliing, and it may perhaps have been true ; nor would it be anything 
 strange that one so favorably inclined to Wicklif and so biassed against 
 his opponents should hold such a story to be true, and look upon the 
 whole thing as a judgment of God. With regard to the second, IIuss 
 said' he did not deny that, twelve years hc^ova the iheolofj leal writings 
 of Wicklif were known in Bohemia, he had made himself familiar with 
 some of that writer's philosophical writings wliich greatly pleased him ; 
 and as he had been informed on good authority of the uprightness of 
 Wicklifs life, so he had let fall the words : " I hope John Wickhf is in 
 heaven. But although I did entertain the fear that he might be 
 damned, yet I could still express the hope that my soul miglit be 
 where the soul of Wicklif was." Again, these words of lluss, uttei'cd 
 with his peculiar conscientiousness, and in entire consistency with his 
 views of the doctrines of absolute predestination and subjective justifi- 
 cation, were received with derision. It was objected to him, again, 
 that he had invited the people by the posting up of public notices, to 
 resort to the sword against their adversaries. But he could appeal to it 
 as a fact, that he had spoken in his sermons only of spiritual weapons ; 
 and, aware of the disposition among some to pervert his words, had 
 taken special pains to point out that he was not speaking of a fleshly 
 but of the spiritual sword. He was, moreover, accused of having fo- 
 mented schism in Bohemia between the spiritual and the secular power, 
 and caused the expulsion of the Germans from the university of Prague. 
 He vindicated himself from this charge, by giving the true account of 
 the whole course of the afflxir, as we have stated it on a former page. 
 Paletz alleged against Huss, that not only Germans but Bohemians 
 were banished. But Huss could prove that this had occurred during his 
 absence. For as we have seen before, he certainly was not present at 
 Prague when those men of the theological faculty were banished. One 
 thing characteristic of these disputes was the pains taken to raise sus- 
 picions against the sayings and doctrines of Huss in a political point of 
 view, and thus to excite against him the prejudices of the ruling pow- 
 ers. So we may interpret d'Ailly when, speaking loud enough to be 
 heard by the emperor, he said to Huss : " When you were first brought 
 before us, I heard you say^ that if you had not proposed of your own 
 accord to come to Constance, neither the emperor nor the king of Bo- 
 hemia could have compelled you to come." Thereupon Huss said his 
 language had been this : " If he had not been disposed to come there 
 of his own accord, so many of the knights in Bohemia were his friends 
 that he might easily have remained at home in some safe place of conceal- 
 ment, so that he never could have been forced to come there by the 
 will of those two princes. At this. Cardinal d'Ailly exclaimed, in an 
 angry tone : " Mark the impudence of the man ! " And a murmur 
 of disapprobation arising, the noble knight of Chlum spoke out in con- 
 
 * We have already on a former ip^^e nalists. But in respect to the exact num- 
 found it provable, that Huss had first been ber of years Huss might easily be mis- 
 led to think favorably of Wicklif by his taken at such a trial. 
 
 intimacy with the philosophical writings ' Which may have probably occurred 
 
 of the latter relating to the general con- when Huss first appeared before thfe pope 
 
 troversy between the realists and uomi- and the cardinals. 
 
348 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 firmatlon of what IIuss had said: "Compared Avith other knights — 
 said he — I have but little power in Bohemia ; yet I could protect him, 
 for a whole year, against all the power of these two sovereigns. How 
 much more could be done by others, who are more powerful than I, 
 and hold the stronger castles!" After these words of the knight, 
 d'Ailly was not disposed to go any farther into this matter, but said to 
 Huss : " I advise you to submit, according to your promise while in 
 prison,' to the sentence of the council. By so doing you will provide 
 best both for your welfare and your honor." Taking up the remark of 
 d'Ailly, the emperor said : Though it was reported that IIuss had 
 not received his safe-conduct from the emperor till fourteen days after 
 his imprisonment,^ the emperor could prove, by the testimony of many 
 princes and persons of rank, that he had received the safe-conduct be- 
 fore leaving Prague, from the hands of the knights Wenceslaus of Diiha 
 and John of Chlum,^ and full liberty was secured to him of defendinii; 
 himself and giving an account of his faith before the council ; and tliis 
 promise had been well fulfilled by the prelates, for which the emperor 
 had all reason to thank them ; although many said the emperor did 
 wrong in granting protection to a man who was a heretic, or suspected 
 of heresy. The emperor, therefore, would now give Huss the same ad- 
 vice with Cardinal d'xlillv. Let him defend nothing obstinatelv ; but 
 "vvith regard to all that was brought against him and had been confirmed 
 by credible witnesses, let him submit, with becoming obedience, to the 
 authority of the council. If he did this, the emperor would see to it 
 that, for his own sake and for the sake of his brother Wenceslaus and 
 of the whole Bohemian empire, he should be dealt with b}' the council 
 in a lenient manner, and let off with a slight penance and satisfaction ; 
 if not, the leaders of the council would know what they had to do with 
 him ; the emperor would never undertake to protect his errors ; he 
 would sooner prepare the faggots for him with this his own hands than 
 suffer him to go on any longer with the same obstinacy as before. To 
 this IIuss replied : " In the first place I thank your majesty for the safe- 
 conduct." And as he was now invited and charged by the knight of 
 Chlum to defend himself against the reproach of obstinacy, which had 
 been cast upon him, he said : " I call God himself to witness that it never 
 entered my thoughts to defend anything obstinately, and that I came 
 here voluntarily and of my own accord with the purpose of changing 
 my opinion without any hesitation, if I should be taught better." 
 Huss was then placed under the care of the bishop of Riga and con- 
 ducted back to his prison. The same day IIuss wrote to his friends in 
 Constance, respecting this examination : " The Almighty God gave me 
 today a strong and courageous heart. Two of the articles of complaint 
 against me have been abandoned. I now hope, by the grace of God, 
 
 ' Without doubt in reference to tliat arrive till after that had taken place, 
 
 conditionally understood sulunission ; the ^ Which, to he sure, is at variance with 
 
 im|ilied condition, however, heintr i^'iiored. the statement of IIuss himself, (see aI)Ove), 
 
 * It appears, accordinirly. that many that he set out on his journey tcitliuul a 
 
 sought to excuse the impri>onmeTit of Huss safe-conduct, 
 by assertiuii that his safe-conduct did not 
 
 O 
 
SECOND APPEARANCE OF HUSS BEFORE THE COUNCIL. 349 
 
 that several others besides will be abandoned. They cry out, nearly 
 all of them, like the Jews against our Master Christ." lie says that, 
 amoni^ the whole multitude of the clergy he had not a single friend ex- 
 cept one Pole whom he knew, and the father." By the father is prob- 
 ably meant that remarkable secret friend of Huss, who subsequently 
 was so active in endeavoring to bring about a compromise between him 
 and the council, and of whom we shall have occasion to say more 
 hereafter. " — he wrote — if a hearing were granted me, in which 
 I could reply to such arguments as they might bring against the arti- 
 cles contained in my treatises ; then, believe I, would many of those 
 who cry out, be compelled to be dumb. As God in heaven wills, so let 
 it be." 1 Again IIuss wrote : Let all the Bohemian knights apply 
 to the emperor and council and demand that as the emperor and council 
 had promised, he might in the next audience briefly state what he had to 
 retract, at the same time giving his explanations. ^ Thus the emperor 
 and council would fulfil this promise too, as they might be forced to do 
 if held to their own words. " I will then speak out — he writes — the 
 truth without reserve ; for rather would I be consumed by the fag- 
 gots, than kept so miserably concealed by them ; for then all Christen- 
 dom would learn what I finally said." To Chlum, whom he called his 
 most trusty patron, he wrote : " May God be your rewarder. I desire 
 that you would not leave the council till you have seen the end." 
 *' — says he — much would I prefer that you should see me led to 
 the stake, than that I should be so treacherously kept in the dark. I 
 still have hopes that Almighty God, through the merit of the saints, 
 may deliver me out of their hands." He begged his friends to let him 
 know when, on the next morning, he should be led forth to trial. He 
 desired them all to pray for him that if he must await death in prison, 
 he might be endued with patience. He lamented that he had not been 
 able to repay many of them for their services, and sent to request that 
 they would be content, and excuse him on the ground of his want of 
 ability. He knew not .who was to repay those who had lent him money 
 in Bohemia, unless it were the Master Christ, on whose account they 
 had lent it to him. Still he expresses the wish that some of the more 
 wealthy would settle up his affairs and pay his poorer creditors. 
 
 On the 8th of June, Huss Avas conducted to his third examination. 
 The articles of charge were read over in their regular order, together 
 with the answers which he had given to them at his private examina- 
 tions in prison. They were more particularly articles said to have been 
 extracted from his book De Ecclesia. With regard to some of them 
 Huss acknowledged that the assertions imputed to him were his, and 
 added a few words, either to establish them, or to guard them against 
 misapprehension ; but with regard to the majority of them, he did 
 nothing of the sort, being confident of proving either that they were 
 not contained in his writings, or that they were altered by being rent 
 from their connection or purposely misconstrued. We may notice 
 
 ' 0pp. I, fol. 69, 2 ; ep. 36. occurred in this second hearing, and seems 
 
 ' We should from tliese words of IIuss to have been left out iu tlie report of Mla- 
 complete, therefore, the account of what denowic. 
 
 VOL. V. 30 
 
350 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 in particular the fifth article, relative to his doctrine concerning the 
 church, uhieh we have already explained, and which stood closely 
 connected with his doctrine of predestination. He was reported to 
 say, that dignity, choice of man, visible signs, made no one a member 
 of the church. IIuss while in prison had acknowledged this assertion 
 to be one contained in his book ; and in confirmation of its truth had 
 added : All depends here on defining what is meant by being in the 
 church and a member of the church ; and this depends on predestina- 
 tion. Predestination was the divine counsel, whereby grace was pre- 
 pared for men in this life, and glory in the future life. Distinctions 
 of rank, human choice, visible signs, did nothing of this kind. Judas 
 Iscariut, notwithstanding he was chosen by Christ, notwithstanding 
 the temporal gifts of grace which he received, and notwithstanding the 
 opinion which the multitude had of him, was no true disci})le of Christ, 
 but a wolf in sheep's-clothing. His assertion that no '"• praescitus '* 
 was a member of the church, he proved by many authorities f.om Ber- 
 nard and Augustin. Furthermore, the tenth article : " If he who is 
 called the vicar of Christ copies after his life, he is his vicar ; but, if 
 lie takes the opposite course, he is a messenger of Antichrist, stands 
 in contradiction with Peter and Christ, and is a vicar of Judas Isca- 
 riot." Huss confirmed this proposition, citing it as it really stood in 
 his books, and in confirming it, referred to a passage from Bernard'3 
 work De Consideratione. When this was read, the prelates looked at 
 each other, shook their heads, and laughed. The twelfth article was : 
 that the papal dignity took its origin from the Roman emperors. Huss 
 added in confirmation of this, that the Emperor Constantine conferred 
 this dignity on the bishop of Rome, and it was afterwards confirmed by 
 the other emperors ; that, as the emperor was the first among princes, 
 the pope was the first among bishops, in reference, namely, to earthly 
 honor and earthly goods. Yet the papal dignity had its origin direct- 
 ly from Christ, so far as it regarded the spiritual dignity, and the call 
 to the sjiiritual guidance of the church. Cardinal d'Ailly, in oppos- 
 ing this, appealed to the sixth canon of the council of Nice, according 
 to the common interpretation ; and asked Huss why he had not de- 
 rived this rather from the decree of the council than from the empe- 
 ror ? But Huss stood firm to his assertion, that the dignity was first 
 derived from the gift of Constantine. The 22nd article related to the 
 important principle, important in reference to ethics laid down by Au- 
 gustin in opposition to Pelagianism, that in moral judgments every- 
 thing depends on the intention, the intcntio oculus aninii ; hence the 
 opposition generally between the godlike and the ungodlike life : — 
 the state of grace Avhere everything is determined by the same funda- 
 mental relation to the temper ; the general bent of the life is one well- 
 pleasing to God ; every natural affection is ennobled, and the man 
 whether he eat or drink does everything to the glory of God ; or the 
 opposite temper of alienation from God, — the ground-tone of the life 
 is either love or selfishness. Now, while Huss had, with Augustin 
 and Jovinian, given prominence to the unmediated antithesis alone, as 
 grounded in the idea or the principle, d'Ailly, on the other hand, 
 
THIRD APPEARANCE OF HUSS BEFORE THE COUNCIL. 351 
 
 held to the em|ilrlcal view, and considered the Christian as he actually 
 appears, with the sinful element still cleaving to him ; and in opposition 
 to Huss he remarked : " Yet holy Scripture says we all sin ;" and ad- 
 verting to the words, 1 John 1: 8, he said : " so then it would follow 
 from this, that we sin continually ^ To this IIuss replied : " Holy Scrip- 
 ture speaks, in such places, of remissible sins, which the moral temper 
 at bottom does not quite exclude from the man,' but which may per- 
 haps exist along with it." The article was read of which we have 
 already spoken on a former page, that whenever a king, pope, bishop 
 lay under a mortal sin, he was neither king,^ pope, nor bishop. Huss 
 had, in his answer, explained this as meaning that such a person was 
 not so in a ivortliy manner, in the sight of God. But in so doing, he 
 had expressly taken care not to deny the objective validity of any sacra- 
 mental act performed by such a prelate ; such a person was only an 
 iimvortliy minister of the sacraments, through whom Christ himself bap- 
 tized and consecrated. At the time this was read, the emperor stood 
 hy 8b window, and by him the Palgrave Louis and the Burgrave Frede- 
 ric of Nuremberg ; and, after much conversation about Huss, he said : 
 " There never was a more mischievous heretic." On these words be- 
 ing read, which torn from their connection might be interpreted as tend- 
 ing to the overthrow of all civil power and order, the emperor's atten- 
 tion was called to them, and he caused them to be repeated. And tliis 
 too doubtless made an impression on the emperor. He said : " Yet 
 no man living is without sin." But Cardinal d'Ailly exclaimed indig- 
 nantly to Huss : " Did it not satisfy thee that thou sough test by thy 
 writings and discourses to bring into contempt and to overthrow the 
 spiritual order ; wilt thou now seek also to push kings from their thrones ?" 
 Then a disputation arose between Paletz and Huss, turning on this : 
 that in the explication of conceptions objective and subjective, worthi- 
 ness conditioned on moral qualities, and lawfully-existing orders inde- 
 pendent of these qualities, were not duly distinguished ; for which Huss 
 had really given occasion enough in the way in which he had stated the 
 distinction. If Huss, instead of merely holding fast to what he had 
 paradoxically expressed, had in his answer explained the matter with 
 more clearness and precision, he would thereby have guarded against 
 many a falsely reasoned conclusion, which proved injurious to his cause. 
 Paletz, for example, observed with regard to a case cited by Huss, that 
 Saul was nevertheless king, though he had heard those words of Sam- 
 uel ; and David too had prevented the slaying of Saul, not on account 
 of the holiness of Saul's life, a quality in which he was utterly deficient, 
 but on account of the holiness that proceeded from his anointing. x\nd 
 when Huss cited a passage from Cyprian to the effect that he was falsely 
 called a Christian who did not follow Christ in his daily walk, Paletz 
 replied : " Mark the simplicity of the man, who quotes what has no- 
 thing to do with the subject. For suppose one not to be truly a Chris- 
 tian ; is he therefore not truly a pope, bishop, or king ? for these lat- 
 
 * Quae non expellunt habitum virtutis ^ In reference to this he appeals to 1 
 ab homine. Fol. 18, 1. Sam. 15: 11. 
 
852 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 ter are names of office, but the term Christian is a designation of char- 
 acter. And accordingly one may be truly a pope, bishop, or king 
 >vithout being a true Christian." Thereupon IIuss answered : " Then if 
 John was a true pope, why have you deposed him from his office ?" Here 
 the emperor struck in : " The council has lately declared that John 
 was a true pope ; but on account of the crimes by Avhich he soiled the 
 papal dignity, and on account of his squandering away the property of 
 the church, they have deposed him." A passage being now cited which 
 "was pointed directly against the lawfulness of the condemnation of the 
 forty-five propositions of Wicklif, Cardinal d'Ailly exclaimed : " But 
 thou hast said thou wouldst not defend any of the propositions of Wick- 
 lif ; yet it now appears from thy writings thou hast openly defended 
 his propositions." Huss replied : '' I say the same that I said before, 
 that I will defend the errors neither of Wicklif nor of any other man. 
 But because it seemed contrary to my conscience to consent uncondi- 
 tionally to their condemnation, where no reason was produced for it 
 from Scripture, I was unwilling to join in condemning them ; and be- 
 cause the different qualifications introduced would not suit all the dif- 
 ferent propositions." When the article was read which denied the ne- 
 cessity of a visible head to the church, where the words occurred that 
 Christ would guide the church better without such monsters of supreme 
 heads, by means of his true disciples scattered through all the world, 
 the prelates said : " Mark, he now puts on the prophet I" In confirma- 
 tion of what he had said, Huss now added : '' Yes, I say it, that the 
 church under the apostles was infinitely better governed than it is at 
 the present time. And what hinders that Christ should not better gov- 
 ern by his true disciples, without such monsters of supreme heads as 
 they now are ? And mark, we have no such supreme head at present, 
 and vet Christ does not cease to «2;overn his church." This remark 
 also excited a laugh. Again, among the articles was one in which, in 
 certain cases, the right was conceded to laymen of passing judgment 
 on the acts of prelates. Next came the article w hich accused Huss of 
 having said that he was going to Constance ; and if for any cause what- 
 ever he should recant anything he had previously taught, he thought 
 he never could do it from honest conviction, because all he had taught 
 was in conformitv with the true and sound doctrine of Christ. Huss 
 could only declare that all this was pure fabrication ; and doubtless he 
 intimated that a letter which he had written to his community at Prague 
 probably gave occasion to the calumny.^ Among the articles now brought 
 forward against Huss, were to be found those also which originated 
 with Chancellor Gerson, and which had already been laid before Huss 
 in prison. To Gerson, Huss could not appear otherwise than as a here- 
 tic, since he refused to acknowledge the immutable and divine right of 
 the hierarchy, and since to him he seemed to invite the people to rebel- 
 lion against the church. He had already, in the year 1114, called 
 upon Conrad of Vechta to see to it that the heresies of IIuss should be 
 
 ' Thus lie complains above, that this mics, and that many statements in it had 
 letter had fallen into Uie hands of his ene- been falsitied and distorted. 
 
THIRD APPEARANCE OF IIUSS BEFORE THE COUNCIL. 353 
 
 punished by the secular power, on these points. lie was still wholly 
 entangled in the old ecclesiastical law. The civil magistracy seemed to 
 him called and bound to punish heretics like other transgressors, and 
 so render them harmless. "Miracles — so Gerson thought — oucht 
 not to be required for the confirmation of the ancient church doctrines; 
 the authority of councils, the utterances of all the church teachers, 
 ■were sufficient. To these common authorities every individual should 
 submit his private judgment. He who hears not this voice, would not 
 hear though one should rise from the dead." So he interprets Christ's 
 words in the parable of Lazarus. " It only remains, then — he pro- 
 ceeds — to employ the secular sword against those who will not hear 
 the voice of the church." i Gerson's articles against Huss related to 
 the notion of the church, the definition of it as the community of the 
 elect, the denial of the necessity of a visible head, the way in which 
 Huss seemed to have made the dignity of the pope, the king, etc., de- 
 pend on the subjective worth of the individual. In what sense Huss 
 intended this to be understood, Gerson does not stop to inquire. Such 
 propositions, without further explanation, were easily liable, as we have 
 seen, to be interpreted as countenancing revolution ; for example, the 
 proposition that no praescitus belonged to the church, no man who did 
 not follow the life of Christ ; that whoever led a good life, after the 
 pattern of Christ, should publicly teach and preach, even though not 
 empowered so to do by his ecclesiastical superiors ; nay, even though 
 he were prohibited by them, or though they pronounced him under the 
 ban ; just as he could and must give alms ; because that calling which 
 is founded on a good life and knowledge was sufficient. In reference 
 to the assertion that no praescitus was a true pope, bishop, king, etc., 
 Gerson remarked : " To maintain such an error is madness ; it is in- 
 surrectionary, leading to the overthrow of every civil constitution ; 
 because no one knows whether he belongs to the number of the elect 
 or the reprobate (a doctrine in which, as we have seen, Huss agreed 
 with Gerson), and because we all ofiend in many parts of our duty. 
 All government would be an unsettled, uncertain thing, were it made to 
 depend on the fact that he who exercised it belonged among the elect 
 and had attained to the position of Christian love. And Peter must 
 have been wrong in enjoining it on servants to be obedient even to bad 
 masters. The university of Paris, in their declaration drawn up by 
 Gerson, where they invite the council to the extirpation of mischievous 
 errors, added : " Though in these propositions, we may recognize a cer- 
 tain zeal against the vices of the clerg}^, which to our sorrow we must 
 confess have gotten too much the upper hand, yet it is not a zeal joined 
 with knowledge. A prudent zeal tolerates while it sighs over the sins 
 w^hich it observes in the house of God but cannot destroy. The 
 evil spirits, however, will not be driven out by Beelzebub, but only by 
 the finger of God, which is the Holy Ghost." The want of Christian 
 prudence is objected to Huss.2 When now all the charges had been 
 
 ' Extracts from the letter of Gerson, in ^ The pain and indignation manifested 
 Du Boulay Hist. Univ. Paris V, 269. by Huss at these particular articles of Ger- 
 
 30* 
 
354 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 brought forward, Cardinal d'Ailly said to Huss : " Thou hast heard 
 how many and what abominable charges are brought against thee. 
 Therefore it is thj duty to consider what thou intendest to do. Two ways 
 are proposed to thee by the council, of which thou must needs choose 
 one. First, that thou shouldcst submit thyself suppliantly to the judg- 
 ment of the council, and bear without murmuring whatever it may 
 please to ordain. If that is done, we shall, out of regard to the two 
 sovereigns and from our desire for thy welfare, proceed against thee with 
 all gentleness and humanity. But if thou still proposest to defend 
 some of the articles which have now^ been laid before us, and demand- 
 est to be heard still further, we shall not deny thee this privilege. 
 But thou must bear in mind that there are here men of so much weight 
 and so much knowledge, that have so well settled and strong reasons 
 against thy articles, that I fear it will redound to thy great injury, to 
 thy great danger if thou undertakest to defend them yet longer. I 
 speak this in the way of exhortation, and not as thy judge." Others, 
 taking up these words of d'Ailly, exhorted Huss, each after his own 
 fashion. He answered, with a profound expression of humility : " Reve- 
 rend fathers ! I have already often said that I came here voluntarily, 
 not for the purpose of defending anything obstinately, but of cheerfully 
 submitting to be taught better if in anything I have erred. I beg, 
 therefore that opportunity may be allowed me to explain my opinions 
 further. And if I do not adduce good and true reasons for them, then 
 I will gladly, as you require, submit to be instructed by you." Here 
 some one said aloud : " ^lark, how cunningly he speaks ! He says 
 ' instructed,' not ' corrected,' not ' decided.' " " Nay, as you please 
 — rejoined Huss — let it be instruction, correction, or decision ; for I 
 call God to witness, that I speak nothing but from the heart." Then, 
 said d'Ailly, taking Huss at his word, yet overlooking the condition 
 which was ever present to his mind : " Since thou dost submit thyself 
 to the instruction and mercy of the council, know that this has been 
 resolved upon by near sixty doctors, of whom some have already gone 
 away, whose places have been taken by the Parisians ; and it has been 
 confirmed unanimously by the council : First, that thou humbly de- 
 clarest that thou didst err in those articles that have been produced 
 against thee ; next, that thou promisest, on thy oath, neither to hold 
 
 Bon. which were laid before him while in lead to the consequences which had been 
 
 prison,arc well worthy of remark. It may, drawn from them. In the letter already 
 
 perhaps, be accounted for from the fact, quoted, written before Easter, he remarks 
 
 that he was conscious of bcin^' so very far in reference to the articles of comphiint 
 
 from intendin<^ any of those practically bron;j:ht ajrainst him hy Gerson : O that 
 
 mischievous consequences which Gerson God would grant me time to write against 
 
 deduced from his doctrines, and yet must the falsehoods of the Parisian chancellor, 
 
 see that there might be some reason for ap- who was not afraid to accuse his neighbor 
 
 prehcnding them in the form in which he of error so insolently and so unjustly be- 
 
 had expressed these pro])ositions. Hence fore so vast a multitude. But. ])crhaps, 
 
 may have arisen in him the wish to have God will interrupt tlie writing l»y his death 
 
 an opportunity of replying to (Jerson in or my own, and better decide the cause 
 
 writing, so as to present his doctrines in before his trihunal than I could do by any 
 
 their true sense, to confirm them hy their writings of mine. 0pp. fol. 73, 2; ep. 50. 
 
 agreement with Augustin, and to guard Compare also the passages quoted on pre- 
 
 them against being so understood as to ceding pages. 
 
THIRD APPEARANCE OF HUSS BEFORE THE COUNCIL. 355 
 
 nor to teach such opinions any lon^jer ; thirdly, that tliou dost 
 pubhcly recant all those articles." When many had spoken much 
 to the same purport, Huss finally said : " I re[)eat, that I am ready 
 to be instructed by the coimcil ; but I beseech and conjure you by 
 him who is the God of us all, that you do not force me to what I can- 
 not do without contradicting my conscience, and without danger of eter- 
 nal damnation, that you do not force me to renounce, upon my oath, 
 all the articles which have been brought against me. For I know that 
 to abjure means to renounce a previously cherished error. As now 
 many articles have been imputed to me, which to hold or fo teach 
 never entered my thoughts, how can I renounce them by an oath ? 
 But as regards those articles which really belong to me, I will cheer- 
 fully do what you require, if any one can persuade me to another opin- 
 ion." Upon this, the emperor said : " Why mayest thou not, with 
 good conscience, renounce all that has been charged upon thee by false 
 witnesses ? / do not hesitate to abjure all possible errors ; yet from 
 this it by no means follows that I have ever tauijld such errors." 
 Huss replied: "Most gracious emperor! the word abjure, means some- 
 thing different from that which your majesty expresses by it." And 
 Cardinal Zabarella here remarked : " There will be handed thee a 
 tolerably mild form of abjuration ; and then thou canst easily make up 
 thy mind, whether thou wilt make it or not." We shall be able, per- 
 haps, hereafter to find some clue to the form of recantation which the 
 cardinal had in mind ; and this will lead us to divine a remarkable secret 
 connection in the train of events. The emperor then spoke again, 
 repeating the language of d'Ailly : " Thou hast heard that two ways 
 are proposed to thee, — first, that thou shouldest publicly renounce 
 those doctrines which have now been pubhcly condemned, and submit 
 thyself to the judgment of the council ; wdiich if thou doest, thou wilt 
 experience the mercy of the council. But if thou dost persist in de- 
 fending thy opinions, the council will no doubt understand how to deal 
 ^vith thee according to the laws." Huss now said to the emperor : 
 " Most gracious emperor, I make no resistance to anything the council 
 may decide "with regard to me. I except but one thing — doing wrong 
 to God and to my own conscience, and saying that I have taught er- 
 rors which never entered into my thoughts. But I entreat that liberty 
 may be granted me from you to explain my opinions still farther, so as 
 to give a sufficient answer to some things objected to me ; namely, 
 concernins; the offices of the church." But the same that had al- 
 ready been said w^as repeated by others and by the emperor. " Thou 
 art old enough — said the emperor — and canst not fail to understand 
 what I said to thee yesterday and today. We cannot do otherwise than 
 believe trustworthy witnesses. If, according to Scripture, by tw^o or 
 three witnesses every word shall be established, how much more shall 
 this hold good where the witnesses are so many and so great men. 
 If then thou art reasonable, thou wilt accept with contrite heart the 
 penance appointed thee by the council, and renounce manifest errors, 
 and promise on thy oath nev^r to hold forth the like for the -future ; 
 if not, there are laws according to which thou wilt be judged by the 
 
356 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 council." One of the prelates now spoke and said, We ought not to 
 believe even the recantation of Huss, since he had ^vritten that though 
 he recanted he would reserve his private conviction. ^ Huss stood firmly 
 to his earlier declaration. Paletz was for showing that Huss contra- 
 dicted himself, in protesting that he defended no error, and no error 
 of Wicklif, while however in his discourses and writings he defended 
 errors of Wicklif ; if he denied this, such writings of his could be 
 laid before the council. The same was said by the emperor ; and to this 
 Huss replied : " Gladly would I have it done ; and could wish that 
 not these merely, but other books of mine might be laid before the 
 council." Several other charges connected with the Hussite move- 
 ments in Prague, were then laid against Huss. We will repeat none 
 of these, as we have already spoken of the same matters in narrating 
 the events themselves. One thing only needs to be mentioned, as serv- 
 ing to give us a clearer insight into the character of the proceedings 
 against Huss, to show how no means were left untried to procure his 
 condemnation, and what presence of mind, what power of faith the man 
 must have possessed ; what resolution, what summoning of every en- 
 ergy was required on his part when, after having suffered so long and 
 so severe an imprisonment, where he had passed through so much sick- 
 ness and experienced so much that must have grieved and depressed 
 his spirit, and after having been kept awake through the whole preced- 
 ing night by tooth-ache, he was compelled, in that long trial, to reply 
 to such an unimaginable variety of attacks and surmizes from so many 
 different quarters. At this time, after all the charges had been brought 
 against Huss, Paletz had the effrontery to step forward and say : " I 
 call God to witness, in presence of the emperor and of all the prelates 
 here assembled, that in these complaints against Huss I have been ac- 
 tuated by no hatred, no ill will towards him ; I have only felt bound to 
 the due discharge of my doctor's oath." The same said Michael de 
 Causis. Hereupon Huss declared : " But I commend all this to our 
 Father in heaven, who will righteously judge the cause of both parties." 
 And Cardinal d'Ailly was biassed enough by the interests of the 
 church party to express, as he had before done, his admiration of the 
 mildness of Paletz, who he said might have cited things a great deal 
 "VNCrse than he had done from the writings of Huss. But when Huss, 
 worn down and completely exhausted, was led back to his prison, the 
 noble-hearted knight of Chlum hastened to visit him, under the full in- 
 fluence of the impression made by his appearance and defence of him- 
 self, and seizing his hand pressed it in a way which must have told 
 more than words. Huss himself describes the effect which this testi- 
 mony of friendship made at such a time, produced on his mind : " 0, 
 what joy did I feel — he writes — from the pressure of my lord John's 
 hand, which he was not ashamed to give me, the wretched outcast here- 
 tic, in my chains.'"-^ 
 
 As regards the further proceedings of the council in this affair of 
 
 ' Sec what IIuss says in the letter al- « 0pp. I, fol. 68, 2; op. 33. 
 ready qiiotod concerning this perversioa 
 of his language. 
 
ACTION OF THE COUNCIL AFTER THE TRIAL OF HUSS. 357 
 
 IIuss, It remains for us to say, that the emperor, after tlie defendant 
 had been removed, made a proposition to the council, declaring to 
 them, that IIuss, as had been clearly proved by many witnesses, had 
 taught so many pernicious heresies, that he deserved, in his judgment, 
 and for some of them singly, to perish at the stake ; but though he 
 should recant, he never should be allowed to preach or to teach again, 
 nor permitted to return to Bohemia ; for, owing to the great number 
 of his adherents in that country, it would be easy for him to excite 
 anew still more violent commotions, and the evil would only grow 
 worse. The emperor, furthermore, advised that those doctrines of 
 of Huss, on which the council had pronounced sentence of con- 
 demnation, should be made known througliout Bohemia, Poland, and 
 other countries, where those heresies had found admittance ; and 
 that the spiritual and secular powers in those lands should be called 
 upon to cooperate in bringing to punishment those who taught such 
 doctrines. Severe measures, also, should be taken against the adher- 
 ents to the Hussite doctrines, who were to be found in Constance. A3 
 we have already said, several persons in the council, seizing upon 
 those words of IIuss, in which he humbly professed himself ready to 
 be instructed and to recant, without taking them in his own sense with 
 the condition which he presupposed, were led to entertain the hope, 
 that Huss might yet be persuaded to recant ; and for this reason the 
 final decision of his fate was put off", and several attempts were made 
 to persuade him to recantation. But even in this case it was thought 
 not advisable, and the emperor himself had expressed the same opin- 
 ion, that he should be restored to full liberty. Not without reason, it 
 was supposed that Huss would still never deviate from the main direc- 
 tion which he had always taken. The council had drawn up a resolu- 
 tion with regard to Huss in case he should recant, by which little more 
 was granted him than barely permission to live. It ran as follows : 
 Since it is evident on the ground of certain conjectures and outward 
 signs, that IIuss repents of the sins he has committed, and is disposed 
 to return with upright heart to the truth of the church, therefore the 
 council grants with pleasure, that he may abjure and recant his heresies, 
 and the heresies of Wicklif, as he voluntary oifers to do, and as he 
 himself begs the council to release him from the ban which had been 
 pronounced on him ; so he is hereby released. But inasmuch as many 
 disturbances and much scandal among the people have arisen from these 
 heresies, and inasmuch as great danger has accrued to the church by- 
 reason of his contempt of the power of the keys, therefore the council 
 decrees, that he must be deposed from the priestly oflSce, and from all 
 other offices. The care of seeing to the execution of this decree is 
 assigned to several bishops at the council, and Huss was to be con- 
 demned to imprisonment during life in some place appointed for that 
 purpose.^ 
 
 Huss himself was entirely ignorant of these transactions within the 
 council ; and being resolved not to recant till convinced of his errors, 
 
 > V. d. Hardt, IV, pag. 432 and 433. 
 
858 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 after what he had heard expressed at the council, he had nothing else 
 in prospect but the stake, and nothing to wait for but the decision of 
 his fate. Accordindf, with these expectations, he wrote, on the 10th 
 of June, a letter to Bohemia, which he addressed to persons ot all 
 conditions, ricli and poor, men and women, lie exhorts them in the 
 first place, faithfiiHy to adhere to the truth whicli he had always set 
 before them from the law of God ; but, if anything had ever been 
 uttered or written by him contrary to divine truth, he entreated them 
 not to follow him in that thing. Furthermore, if any person had ever 
 observed any lightness in his words or his actions, he begged such per- 
 son not to lay it up, but pray God the Lord, that he would forgive him 
 for it. He gives them admonitions suited to every condition ; to the 
 kni'dits, burizher, and artisans ; to masters and students. He recom- 
 mends to them the knights who had so faithfully stood by him at the 
 council of Constance : who had spoken with such boldness and energy 
 for his cause and for his liberation, and particularly Wenzel of Duba, 
 and John of Chlum. Those would furnish them the most reliable 
 information with regard to all the proceedings. He ends and subscribes 
 the letter as follows : " I write this letter in prison and in chains, 
 expecting on the morrow to receive my sentence of death, full of hope 
 in God, that I shall not swerve from the truth, nor abjure errors im- 
 puted to me by false witnesses. What a gracious God has wrought in 
 me, and how he stands by me in wonderful trials, all this you will first 
 understand when w^e shall again meet together, with our Lord God, 
 through his grace, in eternal joy." He moreover commends to the 
 people of Prague the care of Bethlehem Church, against which the 
 fury of satan had been particularly directed, because from it especially 
 had gone both the destruction of his kingdom, and the building up of 
 the kingdom of God. He expresses the wish that God would send 
 them a man as his successor, who would be a still more powerful preacher 
 of gospel truth. 1 As there was now some delay in bringing the atfair 
 to a conclusion, new hopes might spring up in the mind of Huss ; ac- 
 cordingly he wrote in one of his letters : " Our Saviour called to life 
 Lazarus, after he had lain four days in the grave, and had on him the 
 smell of corruption ; preserved Jonah three days in the belly of the 
 fish and sent him back again to preach ; called forth Daniel from the 
 den of lions to record the prophecies ; kept from the flames the three 
 men in the fiery furnace ; liberated Susannah, when already condemned 
 to death : therefore he could easily deliver me too, poor mortal, if it 
 served to promote his oivn glory, the advancement of the faithful, and 
 mv own best good, for this time, from prison and from death. For Ids 
 hand is not shortened, who by his angel led Peter, the chains falling 
 from his hands, from the dungeon, when condemned already to die at 
 Jerusalem. i>ut ever let the will of the Lord be done, which I desire 
 may be fulfilled in me to his glory and to my own purification from 
 sin. "2 He concludes a letter written on the 26th of June, with the 
 following words : " This letter is written in prison and in chains, while 
 
 ' Mikowic, Letter 8. * 0pp. I, fol. 68, 1 ; ep. 32. 
 
LAST DAYS OF HUSS IN PRISON. 359 
 
 I am expecting death. Yet In view of the unsearchable ways of God, 
 I dare not say that this letter is my last. The almiii;hty God still lives ; 
 he can deliver me."' Of course his trial before the council had not 
 answered his wishes nor lus expectations. It was not the saving of 
 his life about which he was chiefly anxiou:^, ])ut his most ardent desire 
 was to have a trial from the council, with lil)erty to express himself 
 freely and without being disturbed, on his doctrines and principles. 
 This he still continually sought to obtain from the emi)eror, through the 
 medium of his Bohemian friends. Accordingly he writes to his friends, 
 *' I still beg for God's sake, that all the nobles would unite in peti- 
 tioning the emperor to allow me a final hearing." He interpreted 
 that such a trial should be granted him, from the words addressed 
 to him by the emperor at the second hearing, and added : " It must 
 redound greatly to the emperor's dishonor, if those words shall not be 
 fulfilled. But I think his words are about as much to be relied on as 
 his safe conduct.""^ Finding himself disappointed in this hope, he 
 wrote to the Bohemian Knights : " Trust not in princes, and the sons 
 of men with whom there is no salvation, because the sons of men are 
 false and deceitful. Today they are, tomorrow they shall perish ; but 
 God abides forever, who has his servants not for his own need, but for 
 the advantage of his servants themselves, to whom he observes what 
 he has promised, fulfils what he has engaged to do for them, never re- 
 pelling from him any faithful servant, for he says, ' Where I am, there 
 also shall my servant be.' Every servant thy master makes lord over 
 all he possesseth, for he gives him himself, and with himself all things, 
 that he may without care, without fear, nay without any cessation, 
 possess all things, sharing with all the saints in endless joy. "3 Also 
 in another letter IIuss writes : " This I have constantly borne on my 
 heart, ' trust not in princes ; ' and the word Cursed is the man who 
 trusts in men, and makes an aim of flesh his confidence ! " He there- 
 fore counsels his friends to prudence."* Thus he writes to a friend near 
 the emperor : "I thought that the emperor had some regard for the 
 law of God and the truth ; now I perceive that these weigh but little 
 with him. He condemned me before my enemies did. Would that he 
 could have shown but as much moderation as the heathen Pilate, who, 
 after hearing the accusation, said, ' I find no fault in this man,' or 
 would that he had said, at the least, I have given him a safe conduct, 
 and if he refuses to submit to the decision of the council, I will send 
 him back with your sentence and the evidence against him to the king 
 of Bohemia, to be finally dealt with by him and his clergy."^ In gen- 
 eral it was a great mistake in Huss if he supposed that he should 
 find in the princes of his time,. who really had nothing but their own 
 political interests in view, allies with himself against the hierarchy and 
 for the reformation of the church. He sees a fulfilment of the 
 prophecy of Revelation, that the kings would commit fornication with 
 
 » Mikowic, Letter 7. '^ Ihid. fol. 64, 2 ; ep. 21. 
 
 2 I hid. fol. 68, 2 ; ep. 34. Compare what * Ibid. fol. 68, 2 : ep. 33. 
 
 has been quoted before from this letter. ^ Ibid, fol, 69, 1 ; ep. 34. 
 
860 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 the great whore of Babylon, the corrupt church ; for tliey had fallen 
 away from Christ's truth, and embraced the lies of antichrist, yielding 
 to seduction, or to fear, or induced by the hope of an alliance, and 
 of obtaining the power of this world. ^ 
 
 Among the steps which were now taken with a view to persuade IIuss 
 to recant, the most worthy of notice are those of an unknown- friend, 
 perhaps the person referred to by IIuss as one of the only two indi- 
 viduals favorably disposed to him at the council. 2 We may conjecture 
 that he was one of those monks, the so-called friends of God, who, 
 like Tauler's Staupitz, had in the solitude of their convents been led, 
 through many conflicts of soul and inward experiences, to the knowledge 
 of the great cardinal truth of the gospel, and to repose their trust in 
 Christ abne as their Saviour ; although at the same time they still 
 clung fast, as did Luther also at the beginning, to the whole ancient 
 church system, which itself became transfigured to their eyes, as viewed 
 from that central point of their whole christian life. It was a principle 
 with these men, never to assume the position of polemics, but rather to 
 work positively in preparing the way for the regeneration of the church, 
 whose corruptions they deeply felt, by beginning at the very centre of 
 Christianity. A person of this character would be a close and atten- 
 tive observer of IIuss, and would recognize in him a kindred spirit. 
 He would only be inclined to disapprove of his too polemical and vio- 
 lent bent to reform, and lament that he should sacrifice himself by 
 giving way to this, instead of preserving his life for the kingdom of God 
 by accommodating himself to things as they were, and remaining with- 
 in the church as salt wherewith it mi<i;ht be seasoned. Conformablv to the 
 principle so often to be met with amongst the mystics, the princi[)le of 
 monkish obedience, this pious man may have thought that IIuss would 
 do well to submit to the decision of his superiors at the council, as the 
 organs of God, thus sacrificing his own self-will and recognizing a les- 
 son from God, teaching him to observe greater moderation and pru- 
 dence in his future labors for the promotion of reform. The great con- 
 fidence with which he seems to have reckoned that if Huss would 
 accept the form of recantation which he pro))Osed to him, his aftair might 
 still be adjusted, would perhaj)S warrant us to conclude that he did not 
 act solely on his own responsibility, but could rely on the concurrence 
 of more powerful individuals. Now if we place this in connection with 
 the fact that Cardinal Zabarella had promised Huss a form of recanta- 
 tion by which his conscience would be left undisturbed, it will appear 
 not at all improbable, that the person of whom we are speaking stood 
 
 ' Ibid. fol. 64, 2; ep. 22. John Canlinalis, of Keinstein, of -nhora 
 
 ^ It was formerly supposed that the per- we have so often sj)okcn, were led into the 
 
 son here mentioned was a cardinal, thoiiizli error of supposing: tliat a cardinal l»y the 
 
 the wav in which he si)eaks to Huss, would name of John was hero intended ; and thus 
 
 by no 'means favor any such conjecture, concluded, that Cardinal Jolm. of 13ro<;ny, 
 
 Some readers finding in the letters of IIuss, hishop of Ostia. commonly called Johan- 
 
 ■which we have already quoted, a person ties (istiensis. was the individual referred 
 
 mentioned hy the name of John Cardi- to. Lenfaut, in the History of the council 
 
 nails, whom IIuss warned ajxainst speak- of Constance, was the first to correct this 
 
 ing so freely, and not recollecting that mistake. 
 
LAST DAYS OF IIUSS IX PRISOX. 361 
 
 somehow connected with this cardinal, and had arranged the v/hole mat 
 ter with him. Perhaps, as we might conjecture from the tone in vvhich 
 he speaks, he was himseU' the abbot of some convent. The recantation 
 which this unknown individual proposed to IIuss, was to this elfcct : 
 " Besides the protestations made before by me, and which I hereby re- 
 new, I protest moreover that though a great deal has been cbarged 
 against me which never entered my thoughts, yet I submit in all that 
 has been charged against me, or objected to me, or extracted from my 
 books, or even uttered against me by witnesses, humbly to the merci- 
 ful direction, determination, and correction of the council, and agree to 
 abjure, to recant, to submit to such mercifid penance as may be im- 
 posed upon me, and to do all that the council may, in its goodness, see 
 fit to determine for my salvation, commending myself with all submis- 
 sion to its mercy." This recantation being laid before him, IIuss re- 
 plied : " May the Almighty Father, the most wise and gracious God, 
 bestow on my father who is so kind to me, for Christ's sake, the eter- 
 nal life of glory ! I am very grateful — he writes — most reverend 
 father, for your paternal goodness. I do not venture to submit to the 
 council, in the form which has been laid before me ; first, because I 
 should have to condemn many truths which they, as I have heard from 
 themselves, call scandalous ; next, because I should perjure myself by 
 such abjuration, since I should have to declare myself guilty of those 
 errors, and thus give great scandal to the people of God, who have 
 heard the contrary from me in my preaching. If then that Eleazar, 
 of whom it is written in the Books of the Maccabees that he would not 
 falsely confess that he had eaten flesh forbidden by the law, lest he might 
 act against God and leave a bad example to those who should come af- 
 ter him, how should I, though an unworthy priest of the new law, 
 through fear of a punishment which will soon be over, think of trans- 
 gressing the law of God with a more grievous sin, first by departing 
 from the truth ; secondly, by incurring the guilt of perjury ; and thirdly 
 by giving scandal to my neighbor ? It would be far better for me to die 
 than, in seeking to escape a momentary punishment, to fall into the 
 hands of God, and perhaps afterwards into eternal fire and eternal 
 shame. And since I have appealed to the Lord Jesus Christ, the al- 
 mighty and most wise judge, committing into his hands his own cause, 
 I therefore abide his sentence and his most holy decision, knowing that 
 he will not judge by false evidence and fallible councils, but according 
 to the truth, and to every man's just deserts." His unknown friend, 
 however, was not to be repelled by this language, but replied to the 
 letter of Huss, bringing the matter once more directly home to his 
 heart. First — he writes to him — let it not trouble you, my dearest 
 brother^ that you condemn truths, since it is not you that condemn them, 
 but those who are your superiors, and for the present also mine. Give 
 heed to that word. Lean not to thine own understanding (Prov. 3: 5). 
 For there are many persons of knowledge and conscience at the coun- 
 cil. My son, receive the law of thy mother. This, in relation to the 
 first point. Next, as regards the second, the breaking of your oath ; 
 even if that perjury were really a perjury, still the guilt of it would not 
 
 VOL. V. 31 
 
362 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 fall on jou, but on those -who require the oath. Next, there are no 
 heresies, so far as you are concerned, ^vhcn the obstinacy is removed. 
 Augustin, Origen, and the Master of Sentences committed errors and 
 rejoiced to be set right again. I have often supposed that 1 under- 
 stood a thing accurately, and yet Avas mistaken ; ^vhen corrected, I 
 have turned about cheerfully. I ^vrite Avith brevity, because I write to 
 one -who understands. You will not depart from the truth, but come 
 nearer to the truth. You ^\'\\\ not commit a })erjury, but better the 
 matter ; you will occasion no scandal, but edify. Eleazar was a glo- 
 rious Jew ; still more glorious Avas the Jewess with the seven sons and 
 eight martyrs (2 Mace. vii). Paul was let down in a basket, that he 
 might advance the better cause. The judge to whom you appeal, the 
 Lord Jesus, will release you from your a])peal in consideration that 
 contentions are still due from you for the faith of Christ.* To these 
 representations Iluss replied : " All this the council has often re- 
 quired of me. 13ut as 2 it is implied in it all that I recant, abjure, and 
 submit to a penance, which would oblige me to deny many truths ; 
 next, as it would be a perjury to abjure errors falsely imputed to me ; 
 then, as I should by so doing give occasion of offence to many of God's 
 people to whom I have preached ; therefore it were better for me that 
 a millstone were hung about my neck and that I should be cast into 
 the midst of the sea ; and fourthly, if I complied to escape a brief pun- 
 ishment and shame, I should fall into the greatest ])unishnient and 
 shame, if I did not, before my death, feel the most poignant remorse 
 for what I had done. The seven martyrs, therefore, belonging to the 
 times of the Maccabees, come up before me to confirm me, who chose 
 rather to be cut in pieces than to eat flesh contrary to the word of God. 
 That Eleazar, too, comes up before me, who would not even say that 
 he had eaten that which was forbidden by the law, lest he should leave 
 a bad example to those who came after him, but chose rather to perish 
 as a martyr. How should I then, who have before my eyes all those 
 examples, and many holy men and women of the new covenant, who 
 have surrendered themselves to martyrdom rather than consent to sin, 
 I who have for so many years preached of patience and fortitude, how 
 should I fall into many falsehoods and perjury and give scandal to 
 many sons of God ? Far, very far, be it from me to do any such thing ; 
 because the Lord Jesus Christ Avill most abundantly reward me, since 
 he now gives me the help of patience." 3 
 
 ' Judex appellationis vcstrac dominiis as that of the faith, and placed hopes upon 
 Jesus (let vobis apostolos, et sunt ii : Ad- him, in case he should preserve his lil'e, 
 liuc dei>entur tihi pro Hde Christi certanii- that he would still further promote the 
 na. The term "a|>o<tolis" is here used iu cause of the faith in lighting against the 
 the sense of the later judical (Jreek and corruptions of the world. 
 Latin — a document by which a court dis- '-^ [In the Latin text which, as we have 
 missed a person from its own jurisdiction, often seen, is extremely iiuorrect, quia 
 und granted him lit)erty to hetake himself stands here, wliich Neander translates 
 to another, allowed him a release from his without taking care to get rid of the re- 
 appeal. Now, this document is represent- suiting anacoluthon. But, perhaps, it 
 ed as implied in the cited words: JIuss is would be better read primo, and then let 
 reserved for fmther contests in behalf of secundo, tertio, quarto, follow in their or- 
 the faith. The writer, therefore, recog- der. Editor.l 
 nizecl the cause for which liuss contended -* 0pp. I, fol. 70; ep. 38, 39, 40 and 41. 
 
LAST DAYS OF HUSS IN PRISON. 363 
 
 Huss was visited in his prison bj several members of the council, 
 both strangers and acquaintances, who sought to persuade him to re- 
 cant in order to save his life. A doctor who visited him labored to 
 convince him that he would be innocent of all guilt if he su)*mitted 
 blindly to the decision of the council. He added : " If the council de- 
 clared that thou hadst but one eje, when thou hast two eyes, thou 
 wouldest still be bound to submit to tlieir decision." Huss rephed : 
 " Though the whole world should tell me this, yet I could not admit it 
 so long as I have my reason, as I now exercise it, without gainsaying 
 my conscience." After many words the doctor finally gave up the 
 point, saying: "It is true, I have not chosen a good example." > 
 Paletz himself 2 said to Huss that he oui^ht not to dread the shame of 
 recantation, but to look simply at the good which would come out of it. 
 Huss replied : '' It is a greater shame to be condemned and to be 
 burned, than to recant ; how should I, then, dread the shame ? But 
 give me your opinion : what would you do, if errors were ascribed to you 
 which you had never taught ? Would you consent to abjure them ? " 
 Paletz replied : " It is an awkward thing." And he began to weep.^ 
 Several who visited Huss endeavored to convince him also on the ground 
 of that monkish notion of humility, that he ought to feel no scruples 
 about abjuring even what he had never taught, when it was required 
 of him by the council ; by so doing he would not be guilty of a lie ; 
 it would be but an act of submission to higher authority, an act of hu- 
 mility. Examples were cited of persons who, from humility, confessed 
 themselves guilty of crimes they had never committed ; such cases 
 occurrimi; in the histories of the ancient monks. An Endishman men- 
 tioned the example of persons in England suspected of Wicklifitism, 
 among whom were several very worthy men, who all at the command 
 of the bishop of Canterbury abjured the Wicklifite errors. But all this 
 was quite at variance with that strict regard to truth which was a rul- 
 ing principle with Huss."* 
 
 From his cell, Huss had contemplated the course of action pursued 
 by the council. It could scarcely fail to make a great impression on 
 his mind to see the pope, for whose authority men were so zealous, the 
 man who had occasioned his imprisonment, afterwards deposed himself 
 by the council, charged with the most atrocious crimes, and closely 
 confined in the castle of Gottleben, which Huss had left. He recog- 
 nized in all this a judgment of God, and could bring it in evidence 
 against those advocates of papal absolutism, who accused him of high 
 treason against the pope's authority. He writes : * " They have con- 
 demned their own head ; what now can those men have to say, who 
 hold the pope to be God on earth, and maintain that he cannot sin, 
 cannot practise simony ? that he is the head of the collective holy 
 church, which he governs extraordinarily well ? who say, he is the 
 head of the holy church, which, he spiritually nourishes ; he is the 
 
 » Ibid. fol. 68, 1 ; ep. 32. » Ibid. fol. 67, 1 ; ep. 30. 
 
 ' Huss relates this in a letter of the 23d * Ibid. fol. 67, 2 ; ep. 31. 
 of June. ^ On the 24th June, Mikowic, Letter 6. 
 
364 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 fountain out of vrhicli flows all power and goodness : he is the sun of 
 the church ; he is the spotless asylum, and that to him everj Christian 
 must betake himself for refuo;e ? Now — savs he — this head is cut 
 off, tlie eartlily god is in chains, accused of sin, the fountain is dried 
 up, the sun is eclipsed, the heart torn out, the asylum has fled from 
 Constance, so that nobodv can take refu^re in him. His own council 
 lias accused him of heresy, because he made sale of indulgences, 
 bishoprics, and other benefices ; and those very persons have con- 
 demned him, of whom many bought their places of him, while many 
 others push the same trade among themselves. lie expresses his in- 
 dignation that the pope should be condemned on account of simony by 
 prelates, who, after their own fashion, practised the same ini(iuity. If 
 Christ should address this council as he did those who asked him to 
 condemn the woman taken in adultery, — he that is without sin among 
 you let him cast the first stone at the pope, they would go out one after 
 another. Wherefore did they kneel before the pope — kiss his feet, and 
 call him most holy father, when they knew him to be guilty of a most 
 atrocious crime ? Wherefore did the cardinals choose for a pope, one 
 who was the murderer of his predecessor ? '* Thus he writes in 
 another letter: "Now vou mav understand what the life of the cler2:y 
 is who say they are true representatives of Christ and his apostles, who 
 call themselves the most holy church, the most infallible council ; and 
 yet this same council has been in error ; it has first honored John the 
 Twenty-third with bowed knee, and called him Most Holy, while yet 
 they knew that he was a shameful murderer, and guilty of otlicr 
 crimes besides, as they themselves afterwards declared when they con- 
 demned him ? "I In the abominations of the secularized church, Huss 
 sees fulfilled already, as Janow had done, the predictions of Christ 
 regarding the abomination in the holy place according to Daniel. He 
 writes to the Bohemians, that they should not allow themselves to be 
 terrified by the council of Constance ; they would never go to Bohe- 
 mia ; many of the council would die before they could force the de- 
 livering up of the books of Huss in Bohemia. These books, like storks, 
 would fly in all directions, from the council, dispersing into all quar- 
 ters of the world : and when winter came, they would perceive what 
 they had efiected in the summer. Huss supposed that he had re- 
 ceived many prophetic intimations in his dreams. " Know — he 
 writes to his friends — that I have had great conflicts in my dreams. 
 I dreamed beforehand of the flight of the pope. And after relating 
 it, Chlum said to me in my dream, ' The pope will also return.' Then 
 I dreampt of the imprisonment of Jerome, though not literally accord- 
 ing to the fact. All the different prisons to which I have been con- 
 veyed have been represented beforehand to me in my dreams. There 
 have often appeared to me serpents, with heads also on their tails ; but 
 they have never been able to bite me. I do not write this because I 
 believe myself a prophet, or wish to exalt myself, but to let you know 
 that I have had temptations both of body and soul, and the greatest 
 
 0pp. I, fol 63, 2 ; ep. 19. 
 
LAST DAYS OF IIUSS IN TRISON. 365 
 
 fear lest I mlylit transgress tlic commandment of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ." ^ IIuss proved himself to be a genuine cliristian martyr in 
 the succession of Christ ; for it was not with stoical a]')athj, not in the 
 intoxication of fanaticism that renders obtuse the natural feelings of 
 humanity, but with entire self-possession, in the undisturbed and full 
 feeling of human weaknesses, contending with and coiKpiering them 
 by the power of faith, that he gave his life as an offering to God. 
 This picture Huss exhibits to us in that noble letter which he wrote on 
 holy eve before the festival of John the Baptist, when he says : 
 " Much consoles me that word of our Saviour, ' Blessed be ye when 
 men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their com- 
 pany, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for 
 the Son of man's sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy ; for 
 behold your reward is great in heaven,' Luke 6 : 22, 28. A good 
 consolation ; nay, the best consolation ; difficult, however, if not to un- 
 derstand, yet perfectly to fulfil, to rejoice amid those sufferings. This 
 rule James observes, who says. My beloved brethren, count it all joy 
 when ye fall into divers temptations, knowing this, that the trying of 
 your faith, if it is good, worketh patience, James 1 : 2, 3. Assuredly 
 is it a hard thing to rejoice without perturbation, and in all these 
 manifold temptations to find nothing but pure joy. Easy it is to say 
 this, and to expound it, but hard to fulfil it in very deed. For even 
 the most patient and steadfast warrior, who knew^ that he should rise 
 on the third day, who by his death conquered his enemies, and re- 
 deemed his chosen from perdition, was after the Last Supper troubled 
 in spirit, and said. My soul is troubled even unto death ; as also the 
 Gosper relates, that he began to tremble and was troubled; nay, m 
 his conflict he had to be supported by an angel, and he sweat as it 
 were great drops of blood falling down to the ground ; but he who was 
 in such trouble said to his disciples. Let not your heart be troubled, 
 and fear not the cruelty of those that rage against you, because ye 
 shall ever have me with you to enable you to overcome the cruelty of 
 your tormentors. Hence his soldiers, looking to him as their king and 
 leader, endured great conflicts, went through fire and water, and were 
 delivered. And they received from the Lord the crown of which 
 James speaks, 1 : 12. That crown will God bestow on me and you, 
 as I confidently hope, ye zealous combatants for the truth, with all 
 ^'ho truly and perseveringly love our Lord Christ, who suffered for us, 
 leaving behind an example that we should follow in his steps. It was 
 necessary that he should suffer, as he tells us himself ; and we must 
 suffer, that so the members may suffer with the head ; for so he says, 
 Whoever would follow me, let him deny himself and take up his cross 
 and follow me. most faithful Christ, draw us weak ones after thee ; 
 for we cannot follow thee, if thou dost not draw us. Give us a strong 
 mind, that it may be prepared and ready. And if the flesh is weak, 
 let thy grace succor us beforehand, and accompany us, for without 
 thee we can do nothing ; and least of all can we face a cruel death. 
 
 » Ibid. f»l. 68, 8 ; ep. S3. 
 
 31* 
 
866 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 Give US a rearlv and willing spirit, an nndannterl heart, the right faith, 
 a firm hope, and perfect love, that patiently and with joy we may for 
 thv sake ^ive up our life." He suhscrihes this letter as f )llo\vs : 
 " Written in chains, on the vigils of St. John, -who, because he rebuked 
 •wickedness, was beheaded in prison. May he pray for us to the Lord 
 Jesus Christ ! " ' IIuss requested permission before his death to con- 
 fess himself, and at first chose his most violent opponent Paletz. lie 
 had so fiir overcome every feeling of indignation and revenge, as to be 
 Avilling to confess to him. lie begged the commissioners to grant liim 
 Paletz, or some other one. They sent him a doctor of theology, who 
 was a monk. This person heard the confession of IIuss, and spoke to 
 him kindlv and piously, as IIuss relates. He counselled him as the 
 others had done, to recant ; he did not make it however a condition 
 of absolution, but gave him the latter without it. This is wortliy of 
 notice, since IIuss, if he did not recant, if the ban under which he had 
 lain was not removed, being still an obstinate heretic, could not properly 
 obtain absolution. We may conclude therefore, with some prol)ability, 
 that this monk too, like the above mentioned unknown friend, belonged 
 to the number of those whose judgment of Huss differed from that of the 
 council.2 In the prospect of death IIuss expressed the pain he felt at 
 not having succeeded in bringing together his beloved Bohemian nation 
 under a common christian and national interest, at being forced into a 
 controversy on that subject with those who were his dearest friends. 
 Accordingly he writes 3 to the masters and bachelors and students 
 of the Prague university : " I admonish you in the most gracious Jesus, 
 that you mutually love one another, lay aside divisions and seek before 
 all things the glory of God, remembering me, how I ever had in view 
 the advancement of the university for the glory of God, how much I was 
 troubled at your dissensions and your false steps, how I strove to knit 
 tof'ether our excellent nation in unity. And behold how this nation in 
 some of those, who were dearest to me, for whom I would willingly have 
 sacrificed my life, has become bitter to me by the shame it has brought 
 on me and by their calumnies, and at length they bring me to a bitter 
 death. May the Almighty God forgive them, because they knew not 
 what they did. For the rest, stand fast in the truth ye have known, 
 which will triumph over all and is mighty through eternity." •* When 
 Paletz last visited IIuss, and the latter besought his forgiveness for any 
 abusive or scornful language which he might have used towards him, 
 particularly for his language in the tract written against him, where he 
 had styled him the " Fictor," the hardened man was moved to tears ; 
 but he always firmly held that much evil had been wrought in Bohemia 
 by IIuss and his adherents.s 
 
 It characterizes IIuss that in spite of the weighty cares and interests 
 of a general nature that occupied his mind, and in the midst of his 
 own personal sufferings and conflicts, he still preserved in his heart the 
 
 > Ibid. fol. 67, 1 et 2; ep. 30. * Il)i(l. fol. 05, 1 ; ep. 18. 
 
 ■ ll.id. fol. 67, 2 ; ep. 31. * Ibid. fol. 67, 2 ; ep. 31. 
 
 • On the 27th June. 
 
LAST DAYS OF IIUSS IN PRISON. 367 
 
 tendcrcst rep^ard for his friends who were to survive liim, following in 
 this respect also the pattern of his Saviour, who showed forth his love to 
 his own even unto deatli. Tn one of his last letters, ' he expresses to 
 the kni'dit of Chlum his deli<j;ht at learninf' that he meant to renounce 
 the vanities and toilsome service of the world, and retiring!; to his estate, 
 devote himself wholly to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose 
 service was perfect freedom. In like manner he expresses jo}^ at learn- 
 'm<^ that the kniglit Wenceslaus of Duba had resolved to retire from 
 the world and to marry. " It is even time for him," he writes, " to 
 take a new course ; for he has already made journeys enough through 
 this kingdom and that, jousting in tournaments, wearing out his body, 
 squandering his money, and doing injury to his soul. It only remains 
 for him therefore to renounce all these things, and remaining quietly at 
 home with his wife, serve God, with his own domestics around him. 
 Far better will it be thus to serve God, without cares, without partici- 
 pation in the sins of the world, in good peace and with a tranquil heart, 
 than to be distracted with cares in the service of others, and that too 
 at the imminent risk of his salvation." He wrote as a postscript : 
 " This is to be placed in the hands of my most trusty friend, that he 
 may read it." ^ He writes to his friend Christann : ^ " My friend and 
 special benefactor, stand fast in the truth of Christ, and embrace the 
 cause of the faithful. Fear not, because the Lord will shortly bestow 
 his protection and increase the number of his faithful. Be gentle to 
 the poor as thou ever wast. Chastity, I hope, thou hast preserved ; 
 covetousness thou hast avoided, and continue to avoid it ; and for thy 
 own sake do not hold several benefices at once ; ever retain thi/ own 
 church, that 'the faithful may resort for help to thee, as to an affection- 
 ate father." He salutes Jacobellus and all the friends of the truth. 
 The letter is subscribed : " Written in prison, awaiting ray execution 
 at the stake." ■* Last of all, he addressed, while still in the immediate 
 expectation of death, a letter to his friends in Prague, with his farewell 
 salutations and commissions. He besought them that for hio sake, 
 who would be already dead as to the body, they would do all that lay 
 in their power to prevent the knight of Chlum from coming into any 
 danger. '' I entreat you," he writes, " that you would live by the Avord 
 of God, that you would obey God and his commandments as I have 
 taught you. Express to the king my thanks for all the kindnesses he 
 has shown me. Greet in my name your families and your friends, each 
 and all of whom I cannot enumerate. I pray to God for you ; do you 
 pray for me ? To Him we shall all come, since he gives us help." 
 Thus wrote Huss, probably on the 4th of July, when he was expecting 
 his martyrdom on the next day. He added, "Already I trust I shall 
 suffer for the sake of the word of God." He begged his friends for 
 God's sake not to suffer that any cruelty whatever should be practised 
 against the servants and the saints of God. In a postscript, he sent 
 his fur cloak as a token of remembrance to Peter of Mladenowic.^ 
 
 * On the 29th June, ibid. fol. 64, 2 ; ep. ' See above, page 810. 
 22. ■* Ibid. fol. 63, I;ep. 17. 
 
 * Ibid, fol 65, 1 ; ep. 23. ^ Ibid. fol. 65, 1 ; ep. 24. 
 
868 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRIXE. 
 
 Thus wrote Huss in the prospect of death : for already was his fate 
 decided by his constant refusal to recant. On the 1st of July, an offi- 
 cial deputation of the council led by John of Wallcnrod, Bishop of 
 Riga, appeared before Huss and invited him once more to recantation ; 
 when he declared his resolution in writin.i:, as he had already declared 
 it by word of mouth to individuals. Tlie document concluded Avith 
 these words : " Were it possible that my voice could now reach to the 
 whole world, as each one of my sins and every falsehood I have uttered 
 will, on the day of judn;ment,'be made known before all, I would most 
 joyfully before* the whole world recant everything false and erroneous 
 which I have ever had it in my thoughts to say, or have ever said. 
 This I say and write of my own free will." On the 5th of July, 
 appeared a deputation from' the emperor, consisting of four prelates, 
 among whom were the cardinals d'Ailly and Zabarella, accompanied 
 by the two Bohemian knights so often mentioned ; and Huss was led 
 out from his cell. Chlum addressed Huss in these words : " I am an 
 unlettered man, and know not how to advise you, who are a learned 
 man. Yet I beseech you, if you are conscious of any error in that 
 which has been publicly brought against you by the council, do not 
 shrink from altering your opinion according to their will ; but if you 
 are not, I shall not lead you to the false step of doing aught contrary 
 to your conscience ; I much rather advise you to suffer any punishment 
 sooner than deny the truth of which you are well assured." IIuss 
 answered weeping : "I call God the Almighty, as I have often done, 
 to witness, that from my heart I am ready, whenever the council teaches 
 me anything better by testimonies from Holy Scripture, to change my 
 opinion at once, and to confess publicly under oath, that I was pre- 
 viously in an error." Thereupon one of the bishops standing by 
 remarked in a bitter tone, " He would never be so arrogant as to set 
 his own judgment above the decision of the whole council." To this 
 Huss replied, " Nor am I of any other mind ; for if he who is least in 
 the council can convict me of an error, I will gladly do all that the 
 council requires of me." " Mark," said the bishops a-t this, " how 
 obstinately he clings to his errors ! " And so they returned back to the 
 emperor with this final dec'laration of Huss. 
 
 On the 6th of July, Huss appeared before the assembled council, at 
 which the emperor also was present, seated upon his throne, surrounded 
 by the princes, and with the insignia of the empire. In the middle of 
 the hall where the council met, stood a sort of table, and near it a 
 wooden frame or stand, upon which were hung the priestly vestments 
 which Huss was to put on previous to his degradation. After an intro- 
 ductory discourse the process was read, together with all the articles 
 of complaint, and from the whole the conclusion was drawn that Huss 
 was a follower of Wicklif, and had disseminated Wicklifite doctrines. 
 Various errors and heresies were ascribed also to Huss himself, with 
 various qualifications, and he was pronounced an obstinate, incorrigible 
 heretic. One of the points here specified was the appeal of Huss to Jesus 
 Christ, which was characterized as an overleaping of the constituted 
 instances of ecclesiastical courts, as an act of infatuation, and a coii- 
 
DEGRADATIOX OF IIUSS. 3G9 
 
 tempt of cluircli juri'^dictlon.^ TTuss attempted, more tlian once, to in- 
 terpose a word in defence of himself n*i;ainst the alleviations ; but he 
 "was not permitted to proceed. He plead once more for liberty to vin- 
 dicate himself, lest those present mi,L!;ht sup])ose that the things al- 
 leged ai2;ainst him were true. But when he found that all was of no 
 avail, falling upon his knees, he commended in prayer his whole cause 
 to God and to Christ. Though commanded to he silent, he fvlt im- 
 pelled, during the reading of the process against him and the pronounc- 
 ing of his sentence, occasionally to utter a word hi vindication of him- 
 self. He expressed himself with great j)rcsence of mind, uniting confi- 
 dence with humility. When his appeal to Christ was, for the reasons 
 above stated, condemned as heretical, he said : " Christ ! whose 
 word is, by this council, publicly condemned, I appeal to thee anew, 
 thou who, when thou wast ill intreated by thine enemies, didst appeal 
 to thy Father, thy cause thou didst commit to that most righteous judge, 
 that we, following thy example, might when oppressed by injustice, take 
 refuge in thee." When it was objected to IIuss that he had remained 
 for so long a time under the ban, and jet held mass, he told what he 
 had done to obtain his acquittal and the removal of the ban, and con- 
 cluded by stating how he had come to the council of his own accord 
 with a safe-conduct from the emperor. In saying this, he turned and 
 looked the emperor full in the face. The latter is said to have blushed.^ 
 When Huss was pronounced an obstinate heretic, he said : " I never 
 was obstinate ; but as I have always demanded, up to this hour, so 
 now I ask only to be informed of what is better from holy Scripture ; 
 and I confess that so earnestly do I strive after the truth, that if with 
 a word I could destroy the errors of all heretics, there is no peril I 
 would not willingly incur for that end." When his books were condem- 
 ned, he said : " Wherefore condemn ye them, when you have not offered a 
 single argument to prove that they are at variance with the holy Scrip- 
 tures and with the articles of faith ? And what injustice is this, that 
 ye condemn, with the rest of my books written in the Bohemian tongue ? 
 books that ye have never seen, much less read ! " At times he prayed 
 with his eyes fixed heavenward. When his sentence had been read lo 
 the end, falling upon his knees, he said : " Lord Jesus I forgive my 
 enemies ; as thou knowest that I have been falsely accused by them, 
 and that they have used against me false testimony and calumnies. 
 Forgive them for the sake of thy great mercy ! " These words were 
 received with laughter by many. Next followed his degradation from 
 the spiritual order, which was performed by seven bishops selected for 
 this purpose. First, he was clad with the priestly vestments. Through 
 the whole of this transaction, the example of Christ stood distinctly be- 
 fore Huss, whose steps he was conscious of following in all the insults 
 he had to endure. In this sense he interpreted many parts of the pro- 
 
 » Cum appellationem ad dominum Je- pag. 393 : Haec cum loqueretur, oculos in 
 
 sum Christum, tanquam supremum judi- imperatorcm detixos hahuit. Ille vero 
 
 cera omissis ecclesiasticis mediis interpo- statim velicmenter eruhuir, atque ejus ve 
 
 suit Histor. Hussi, opp. I. fol. 27, 2. recundus tinxerat ora rubor. 
 
 ' This is so stated by V. d. Hardt, IV, 
 
870 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 ceeding. Invested with the priestly robes, he was called upon once more 
 by the bishops to show some regard for his honor and his soul's salva- 
 tion, and recant. Addressing himself with tears to the people who 
 stood around, he said : " These worshipful bishops require it of me to 
 confess before you all that I have erred. If this tiling were of such a 
 nature that it could be done so as to involve onlv the disa;race of a sin- 
 gle individual, they would more easily persuade me to it. But I now 
 stand before the eyes of my God, without dishonoring whom, as well as 
 meeting the condemnation of my own conscience, I cannot do this. 
 For I know that I have never taught anything of the kind that I have 
 been falsely accused of teaching ; but have always thought, written, 
 and taught the contrary. With what face could I look to heaven, with 
 what brow could I meet those who have heard my teaching, of whom 
 the number is great, if by my fault it should happen that what hitherto 
 they were most certainly assured of through me, should be made un 
 certain to them ? Should I by my example destroy the peace of so 
 many souls whom I have made familiar with the most settled testimo- 
 nies of Scripture, and with the purest doctrines of the gospel, and 
 thereby fortified against all the assaults of Satan ? Far be it from me 
 that I should value this my mortal body more highly than the salvation 
 of those souls." This too, Avhich was now spoken by him, was con- 
 strued as a proof of his obstinacy in his heresies. The several articles 
 of his dress were then removed, piece by piece, with set forms of ex- 
 pression. When the cup of the eucharist was taken from his hands, 
 with the words : '' We take from thee, condemned Judas, the cup of 
 salvation," he answered : " But I trust in God, my Father, the Al- 
 mighty, and my Lord Jesus Christ, for whose name I bear this, that he 
 will not take from me the cup of his salvation ; and I have a firm hope 
 that I shall yet drink of it today in his kingdom." A dispute having 
 arisen about the mode of removing his tonsure, Huss said to the empe- 
 ror : "I am surprised when all are alike cruel, they cannot agree 
 among themselves about the 7node of cruelty." A cap painted over 
 with devils was then placed on his head, with the inscription : " arch- 
 heretic." But he said : " My Lord Jesus Christ Avore, on my account, 
 a crown of thorns ; why should not I be willing, for his sake, to A\ear 
 this easier though shameful badge. I will do it, and gladly." When 
 this was done, the bishops said : " Now we give over thy soul to the 
 devil." '^ But I — said Huss, raising his eyes to heaven — commend 
 into thy hands, Jesus Christ, my soul, by thee redeemed." Huss, cast 
 forth from the church, was now delivered over to the secular arm. 
 The emperor then commanded Duke Louis of Bavaria to consign Huss 
 to the executioners of justice. W^hen, on being led away by them, he 
 beheld his books burning before the doors of the church, he smiled. 
 He bade all whom he passed not to believe that he was about to die for 
 the sake of some erroneous doctrine, but that it was only through the 
 hatred and malice of his adversaries, who had brouirht a":ainst him false 
 accusations. On arriving at the place of execution, Huss fell u|)on 
 his knees and prayed, in the words of a few psalms, particularly the 
 fifty-first and thirty-first. He was heard often to repeat the words : 
 
JEROME OF TRAGUE. 371 
 
 *' Into thy hancis, Lord, I commit my spirit." When laymen, stand- 
 ing by, heard this, they said : " What he may have done before, ^ve 
 know not ; but now we see and hear him pray and speak most de- 
 voutly ! " When compelled to rise from his knees, he said : " Lord Je- 
 sus Christ ! stand by me, that by thy help I may be enabled, with a 
 strong and steadfast soul, to endure this cruel and shameful death, to 
 which I have been condemned on account of the preaching of the holy 
 gospel and thy word." IIuss then permitted his first prison-keepers 
 to come near him, and said to them in the German lan^niaiie : " I 
 tliank you, my dearest brethren, for all the kind attentions you have 
 sliown me, for you waited upon me like dearest brothers, to say notJiing 
 of your being my keepers. And be assured that I have a fii-m trust 
 in my Saviour, in whose name I will, with good courage, suflfer this 
 kind of death, believing that I shall today reign with him." ' He then 
 explained, as he had done before, the cause of liis death to the people. 
 When be was placed upon the faggots, bound fast to the stake, and 
 chained to it by the neck, he said : " I willingly wear these chains for 
 Christ's sake, who wore still more grievous ones." Before the pile was 
 lighted, the marshal of the empire, Von Pappenheim, rode up to him and 
 called upon him once more to recant. But he said : " What error should 
 I recant, when I am conscious of no error ? for I know that wliat has 
 been falsely brought against me, I never thought, much less have I 
 ever preached. But the chief aim of ray preaching was to teach men 
 repentance and the forgiveness of sins according to the truth of the 
 gospel of Jesus Christ and the expositions of the holy fathers ; there- 
 fore am I prepared to die with a joyful soul." The fire being kindled, 
 Huss commenced singing, with a loud voice : " Jesus, Son of the liv- 
 ing God, have mercy upon me." As he was beginning to repeat this 
 for the third time, his voice was stifled by the flames, which the wind 
 drove towards him ; yet his lips were seen for a long time to move, as 
 in prayer. The ashes of his body when burned, were cast into the 
 Rhine, so that nothing might remain of him to pollute the earth, pre- 
 cisely as the ashes of Polycarp were disposed of by the pagans. 
 
 We have still to speak of the fellow combatant of Huss, Jerome of 
 Prague. This person, who appeared sometimes in the character of a 
 philosopher and theologian, sometimes in that of a knight and man 
 of the world, had created a still greater and more general stir than 
 Huss. He had labored in countries the most diverse to promote the 
 cause of reform, and had displayed far greater zeal than the more 
 practical Huss in diffusing the doctrines of Wicklif. In Bohemia and 
 Moravia, he had extended his influence among all classes.^ Then 
 
 ' V. d. Hardt, IV, pac^. 447. pie of both sexes, and among students at 
 ^ To this there is doubtless special allu the universities: Quidam insani mai:^i-itri 
 sion in what tlie abbot of Dola says, when Wielelitici ordinis et schismatis non so- 
 speaking of persons, who, after wandering lum post diseursum peregrinarurji nobis 
 through many countries, labored to disse- terrarum et districtuum eiiani in terris nos- 
 niiuate Wicivlifite doctrines in Bohemia tris, Bofiemiae et Moraviae, aul*s princi- 
 and Moravia, at the courts of princes, in pum, collegia et cathedras i*acerdotum, 
 cathedral churches, in convents, even scholas studentium, promiscui sexus po- 
 among the Carthusians, and among peo- pularem tumultnm fidelium, antra deserti 
 
372 HISTOKY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 a""ain he had produced great commotions at several universities by his 
 zeal in defending the doctrines of Wicklif, for example in Paris and 
 Heidelberg. In Paris he had more opposition to encounter from the 
 fact that this university was a seat of nominalism. Wicklif's doctrine 
 concerning God's almighty power, which he there set forth, would in 
 particular arouse the suspicion of one so zealously devoted to uniform- 
 ity of doctrine and so ]irejudiccd against everything of an abnormal 
 and eccentric nature as Chancellor Gerson. The latter was pre] nred 
 to bring him to trial, where he was to be forced to a recantation ; hut 
 he was informed of it in time to make his escape. i Next we find him 
 in Vienna, where also he excited disturbances. The magistrates 
 caused him to be arrested, but afterwards set him at liberty. And he 
 was still later accused at Constance of having brought this about by 
 deceiving the magistrate, promising that he would make up his mind 
 to recant, and that lie would not leave Vienna until the end of his trial.- 
 From the castle of Wietow he addressed to the official a letter, excus- 
 in^T his flight on the ground that his promise had been given under 
 constraint. '' You are to know," he wrote, " that I am at the castle 
 of "Wietow, sound and hearty, with many friends ever ready to serve 
 you and yours. And I pray you excuse me with regard to the promise 
 you forced from me, as you will do, if you weigh well the import of such 
 a promise. For we by no means intend to evade the law, but are 
 always ready to hold ourselves responsible to it if a suitable guaranty 
 of just treatment is given us. Yet to stand alone amidst so many 
 hundred enemies is what you would not advise me to do yourself if you 
 trulv loved me. But my soul has escaped like a sjiarrow from the net 
 of the fowlers ; the snare is broken, and we are free. Still I thank you, 
 and shall always thank you. Do but send me all my adversaries with 
 the witnesses to Prague ; there I will meet them in fair debate. Or, 
 if it should be more convenient for them, let us together go to the 
 court (probably of Rome,) where they will have quite as many ac- 
 quaintances as I have." 3 In his defence of himself at Constance, 
 Jerome justifies his conduct on the ground, that the proceedings of the 
 official against him were wholly irregular, since he had no lawful 
 authority over him, belonging, as he did, to another diocese.4 Accord- 
 
 claustralium, scd etiam scprcpatas in par- bitus suspectus. iidcm mafristrl ot pracser- 
 
 tem et pacem silentii Cartusicnsiuni <el- tim Joanii. dt' fJersoiu' i|)>um iid it- vo<nn- 
 
 lulas cum terrorc valido ( replevciunt) tc- duin liujusmoili onuivs coiiipuli-srt. St'd 
 
 '^hementcr. Amiwiklertus, in Pcz, IV''. 2, Ilicronymus, ncscitur per (|iirni avisatus, 
 
 pa«;. 157 et 158. occulte civitate et studio recessiit. V. d. 
 
 ' We take this from the trial of Jerome llardt, IV, pa;;. 680 et Gv>^l. 
 
 at Constance, where lie is reproached with ' (Viennae) propter infamiam liaercsc- 
 
 the fact: Cum llieronymus saepius de ar- os per otticialem curiae fuit arrestatus, ct 
 
 ticulis Wicletl' incepisset coiiferre, alios- juravit et .snh poena exeonnnuiiicationis 
 
 que ad conferendum induxisset, laudasset promisit, de oi)pido Viennensi nullatenus 
 
 et commendasset Joannem Widett" et ejus recedere, neque se absentare, caet. Ibid, 
 
 pervcrsam doctrinam, tandem in quadam patr. fi.'^s. 
 
 disputatione publica dietos enores publiee ^ Ibid. pa<:. GS.T. 
 
 tenuit, et praesertim, tpiod dens nihil pos- * Violenter arrestatus fui. nee quicquam 
 
 sit annihilare. Tandem (juum esset per meeum juridice, scd Tiolcnter actnin est, 
 
 plures magistros Farisienses graviter no- nee habebMnt quicipiani jurisdietionis su- 
 
 tatU3 et vehementer de haeresi per cos ha- per me, quia de alia eram dioece»i. 
 
JEROME OF PRAGUE. 373 
 
 ingly he looked upon the whole proceeding as an exercise of arbitrary 
 power, and thought himself fully justified in making his escape from it. 
 It could not justly be exacted of him to stay and await his own death 
 at the stake, which was inevitable.^ We next find him, in the year 
 1410 in Ofen, where he a))peared before the emperor Sigismund and 
 many bishops. It was not till the archbishop Zbynek had entered a com- 
 plaint against him in a letter to the emperor, that he was arrested by the 
 latter, and handed over to the archbishop of Gran. This archljishop 
 kept him under arrest only five days, and treated him with kindness. 
 It was owing perhaos to the mediation of this prelate that the king 
 dismissed him without demanding further security.^ Next having 
 left Prague immediately after those commotions in 1413, of which we 
 have given an account, Jerome visited King Wladislaw of Poland, 
 and Duke Witold of Lithuania. lie appeared in Cracow, and there 
 excited great commotions. Albert, bishop of Cracow, who stood forth 
 as his opponent, supposes it is true that he found no acceptance there, 
 and no susceptible soil for his opinions amongst that simple people. 
 But he contradicts himself, when he says at the same time, that such 
 violent commotions had never been produced there by any individual 
 since the memory of man. If the soil had been so unsusceptible, such 
 effects could not have been produced. The truth may be, that the 
 great mass of the simple people were offended at him, and would not 
 hear him ; but he must have found adherents among others.3 He was 
 accused at Constance of having shown a disposition to favor the Greek 
 Church in Lithuania. Tlius he is said to have made his appearance in 
 the cities of Witepsk and Plescow, and to have participated there with- 
 out scruple in the communion of the Greek Church which was devoted 
 to the Russians. He is said to have endeavored to persuade Duke 
 Witold to apostatize from the Latin Church. Jerome could say in de- 
 fence of himself, that in the case of Duke Witold the only question 
 debated by him was, whether baptism, performed according to the 
 rites of the Greek Church on a great number of people who were dis- 
 posed to come over to the Latin Church, was to be recognized as vahd, 
 or whether it was necessary that they should be rebaptized, and he 
 maintained the vahdity of such a baptism, holding it only to be necessary 
 
 * Nee furtive nee contumaciter recessi, ^ The bishop writes : Venit hue persou- 
 
 sed violentiam mihi ab iis intligendam ex- aliter. et prima die barbatus apparuit, se- 
 
 s])ectare non volui, prout nee tenebar, nee cunda vero imberbis stolatus, tunica rubra 
 
 debui. Ibid pag. 638. et caputio foderato, pellibus griseis, se glo- 
 
 ^ In the comphxints laid against Jerome riosura ostendebat, coram ipso rege, regi- 
 at Constance, the aflfair is represented as na. principum, baronura ac procerum fre- 
 if Jerome had been arrested and imprison- quentia. Qui tamen licet hie paucis dic- 
 ed and then banished from Hungary by l)us moraretur, majores in clero et populo 
 the Emperor Sigismund on account of the fecit commotiones, quam fuere factae a 
 "Wicklitite errors disseminated by him. memoria hominum in diocesi ista. — Ter- 
 But the report of Jerome is certainly, in ra nostra ad semen suum videtur esse ari- 
 itself, the more probable one ; for, if Je- da capiendum et fructum atfercndum, eo 
 rome was arrested on account of Wicklif- quod simplex pleliicuhi tanti philosophi 
 ite heresies, and suljjected to an examin- dogmata comprchendere non valet, et mul- 
 ation, his judges would not have been con- to minus terrae Lituanorum et Russiae 
 tent with merely banishing liim from Hun- caet. According to a citation in Palacky, 
 gary. Ill, 1 p. 301, note 412. 
 
 VOL. V. 32 
 
374 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 that such persons should be more exactly instructed in the doctrines of the 
 Latin Church. ^ We may well suppose that those persons, who were 
 seeking every way to stigmatize Jerome and Huss as heretics, and 
 whose sayings, as is apparent from the facts already exhibited, were 
 little Avorthy of credence ; that such persons by means of their sophis- 
 tical reasonings from facts as simple as the above described might seize 
 upon and pervert such cases so as to answer their own ends. At the 
 same time it may be true also, that Jerome had given some occasion 
 for such accusations, by his rather liberal conversations on the subject 
 of the relation of the Greek to the Latin Church. Proceeding as he 
 doubtless did on the same fundamental idea of the church with lluss, 
 and so apprehending this idea after a more spiritual and inward manner, 
 approaching more nearly to the idea of the invisible church, he may 
 perhaps from this point of view have risen superior to the points of 
 opposition between the two churches, recognized genuine members of the 
 church even amongst the Russians, and sought to encourage efforts to 
 bring about a union between the two churches. If even such a man 
 as Chancellor Gerson, distinguishing the more essential from the more 
 unessential, expressed himself with mildness on the relation of the 
 Greek Church to the Latin, and sought to prepare the way for negotia- 
 tions of union, how much more might this be done by Jerome, who rose 
 far above the narrow limits of Parisian theology. Jerome had, in the 
 mean time, returned to Prague. The imprisonment of Huss had taken 
 place. He could not bear to leave his friend and fellow combatant 
 alone in this crisis. He appeared at first incognito and secretly at 
 Constance, on the 4th of April, 1415. But as he must soon ascertain 
 that he would not be heard, and could not be safe there, he left Con- 
 stance again, and repaired the next day to the small town of Ueberlin- 
 gen four miles distant. From thence he wrote to the emperor 2 and cardi- 
 nals, and offered, if a safe conduct were granted him, publicly to answer 
 before any one to every charge of heresy that might be brought against 
 him. Not being able to obtain such a safe conduct, he caused to be 
 affixed the next day, on the gates of the emperor's palace, on the doors 
 of the principal churches, the residences of the cardinals, and other 
 eminent prelates, a notice in the Bohemian, Latin, and German lan- 
 guages, wherein he declared himself ready, provided only he should have 
 full liberty and security to come to Constance and to leave it again, to 
 defend himself in public before the council against every accusation 
 made against his faith. Not obtaining what he demanded, he procured 
 a certificate to be drawn up to that effect by the Bohemian knights 
 resident in Constance and sealed with their seals, and with this to serve 
 as a vindication of himself to his friends, he turned his face towards 
 Bohemia. But as he travelled slowly, at conflict with himself, his 
 enemies succeeded in waylaying him, and getting possession of his 
 person. He was arrested near Hirschau, a small town in Suabia. 
 Meantime, as an answer to the notices posted up by Jerome at Con- 
 
 * V. d. Hardt, IV, pap. 643. the expression : Scripsit per me literas. 
 
 ' It is his secretary, whose re])ort is our Cfr. Joaun. Ilus opp. II, fol. 349 seq. 
 authority for these statemeuts : for he uses 
 
TRIAL OF JEROME OF PRAGUE. 375 
 
 stance, followed a citation of the council, calling upon liim to rlefend 
 himself before a public session of that body. A safe conduct was 
 granted him, in terms implying that he was to have no security for his 
 person, it being promised him that he should suffer no violence, so far 
 as this could be allowed without detriment to justice.' At the request 
 of the council and by the emperor's command, Jerome was now con- 
 ducted in chains to the council on the 2-jd of May, and he appeared 
 before a public convocation of the same body in the Franciscan con- 
 vent. In this assembly, he encountered a number of eminent men 
 from the universities of Paris, Heidelberg, and Cologne, who recollected 
 him, and triumphed over the man who had once given them so much 
 alarm. Accordingly one after another addressed him, and reminded 
 him of the propositions which he had set forth. The first among these 
 was Chancellor Gerson, who captiously charged him with wanting to 
 set himself up as an angel of eloquence, and with exciting great com- 
 motions at Paris by maintaining the reality of general conceptions. 
 We may observe here, as well as in other like examples, the strong 
 propensity which now prevailed to mix up together philosophical and 
 theological disputes. But Jerome distinguished one from the other, and 
 declared that he, as a university master, had maintained such philo- 
 sophical doctrines as had no concern with faith. In reference to all 
 that had been objected to him by different parties, he held himself 
 ready to recant as soon as he was taught anything better. Amid the 
 the noisy shouts was heard the cry, " Jerome must be burnt." He 
 answered with coolness, " Well, if -you wish my death, let it come in 
 God's name ! " But the archbishop of Salzburg said, " Not that ; for 
 God has said ' He wills not the death of the sinner, but that he should 
 turn." Meanwhile, after the prelates had retired, Peter of Mladeno- 
 wic, sent by Huss, came to the window of the room in which Jerome 
 was to be found, and exhorted him to stand fast by the truth, and not 
 to shrink even from dying for that truth for which he had so stoutly 
 spoken. Jerome replied that he hoped, with the grace of God, to 
 remain faithful to the truth even unto death ; they had talked a good- 
 deal about death, now they were to learn what it ^cas. He w^as now 
 delivered over by the archbishop of Riga, in the night time, to a guard, 
 who led him prisoner into a tower, where he was bound, to a stake, 
 with his hands, feet, and neck so that he could scarcely move his 
 head. Thus he lay two days with nothing to eat but bread and water. 
 Then for the first time he obtained, through the mediation of Peter of 
 Mladenowic, who had been told of his situation by his keepers, other 
 means of subsistence. This severe imprisonment threw him into a 
 violent fit of sickness. He demanded a confessor, which was at first 
 refused, then granted with great difficulty. After he had already 
 spent several months in this severe confinement, he heard of the mar- 
 tyrdom of his friend. His death and the imprisonment of Jerome 
 produced the greatest exasperation of feeling among the knights in 
 
 ' Ad quod a violentia. justitia semper orthodoxa, tenore praesentium ofFerimus. 
 salva, omnem tihi salvum conductum nos- 0pp. II, fol. 350, 1. 
 trum quantum in nobis est et fides exigit 
 
876 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 liohemia and Moravia. On the 2d of September they put forth a 
 letter to the council, in which they expressed their indignation, decLared 
 that they had known Huss but as a pious man, zealous for the doctrines 
 of the gospel ; and that he had fallen a victim only to his enemies and 
 the enemies of his country. They entered a bitter complaint against 
 the captivity of the innocent Jerome, who had made himself famous 
 by his brilliant gifts ; perhaps he too had already been murdered like 
 Huss. Thev declared themselves resolved to contend even to the 
 shedding of their blood, in defence of the law of Christ and of his 
 faithful servants.^ The council now had to fear, that should Jerome 
 experience the like fate with Huss, new oil would be added to the 
 flames already kindled among the Bohemians, and violent agitations 
 would begin from that quarter in the church. Hence they must use 
 every effort to induce Jerome to recant. And hence he was caused 
 repeatedly to appear before the council, where they hoped he might 
 yield. The tedious length of his close confinement, which had now 
 lasted near half a year, and his longing desire for liberty, at length 
 brought Jerome to a point where he gave in, and consented to offer a 
 recantation. This was in the month of September. But it was 
 deemed important by the council that the recantation should be made 
 in the most public manner possible ; and a general assembly of the 
 council was therefore appointed for this purpose. Accordingly Jerome 
 appeared in the 19th session, on the 28d of September, 1415, and 
 read a prescribed form of recantation, abjuring all the heresies of 
 which he was accused, namely, all the heresies of Wicklif and Huss, 
 acquiescing in the sentence passed by the council upon them both, and 
 making several other declarations, such as the council required of him. 
 One of these particularly deserving of notice, was his retractation of 
 the assertion, that without the doctrine of the reality of general con- 
 ceptions (de universalibus realibus) the christian faith could not be 
 defended. Here we have another example of the close connection 
 which then prevailed between philosophical and theological polemics. 
 After this Jerome was conducted back to his prison, but no longer 
 closely fettered. Having now done all that was required of him he 
 had a right to claim his liberty. This was even acknowledged by the 
 commission appointed to conduct his trial, at the head of whom stood 
 cardinal d'Ailly. But Paletz and Michael de Causis and monks who 
 came from Prague endeavored to raise suspicions against Jerome's 
 recantation, and hinted at the disastrous conseciuences which would 
 result from his being set at large. And there was, indeed, every 
 reason to fear, that Jerome, as soon as he got back to Bohemia, would 
 once more place himself at the head of the reform movement. Be- 
 sides, Chancellor Gerson added weight to the current suspicions against 
 Jerome by a tract of his, " On protestations in matters of faith." 
 Remarks, too, may have dropped from his own lips, betraying the true 
 temper of his mind, and which would be made the most of by his ene- 
 mies. But his judges, who confined themselves to the simple facts of 
 
 » V. d. Ilardt, IV, pag. 495. 
 
TRIAL OF JEROME OF PRAGUE. 377 
 
 the case, insisted on Jerome's liberation. The above mentioned Bo- 
 hemians zealously opposed them and hinted at bribery. The members 
 of the commission finally threw up their office ; a new commission was 
 appointed ; and Jerome was subjected to new examinations. At len^^th 
 he refused to submit to any more private examinations, and demanded 
 . a public trial, where he would express himself freely. 
 
 Op the twenty-third of May, Jerome finally obtained the desired 
 public hearing before the assembled council. New articles of com- 
 plaint were to be brought against him. He demanded liberty to speak 
 first of himself. This was not granted him. He should answer first 
 to the articles of complaint. He was required to bind himself by oath 
 to speak the truth ; but he declined taking an oath, as he did not ac- 
 knowledge the competency of the new tribunal, nor the regularity of 
 the ncAv examination. On the twenty-third and the twenty-sixth of 
 May he defended himself, from seven o'clock in the morning till one in 
 the afternoon, against all the accusations, one by one ; unravelled in a 
 connected discourse all the events in Prague in which he had taken a 
 part, with such presence of mind, such eloquence, so much wit, as 
 to excite universal admiration. Then, finally, he was allowed to 
 speak of himself; and it was expected that he would only complain of 
 the injustice of the new examination, appealing to the fact that he had 
 done all that could be required of him, and close with demanding that 
 the acquittal which had been put off so long should now be granted 
 him. He actually commenced with something of this sort, describing 
 the injustice of renewing the process against him, complaining of his 
 new judges, and protesting against the competency of this new tribu- 
 nal. But soon his discourse took a new turn alto<]fether. In a dazzlins 
 stram of eloquence he brought up, one after another, those men who 
 among pagans, Jews, and Christians had fallen victims to false accusa- 
 tions, and particularly to priestly hatred. He spoke of Socrates, 
 Seneca, Boethius, John the Baptist, Stephen, and, last of all, John 
 Huss ; enthusiastically dilating on the latter, as a man known to him 
 only by his zeal for piety and truth ; one who had drawn down upon 
 himself the persecutions of a worldly-minded clergy only by the faith- 
 fulness with which he rebuked their corruption. He ended by declar- 
 ing that there was no one of his sins he more painfully rued, than that 
 of having suffered himself to be moved by the fear of death to acqui- 
 esce in the condemnation of that saintly confessor of the truth. He 
 took back all he had said concerning Wicklif and Huss. He declared 
 that he assuredly should not be the last of those who would fall victims 
 to the cunning malignity of bad priests ; and turning round to his 
 judges he exclaimed : " I trust in God, my Creator, that one day, 
 after this life, you shall see Jerome preceding you and summoning you 
 all to Judgment, and then you must render your account to God and 
 to me, if you have proceeded against me wrongfully. ^ This last de- 
 
 ^ V. d. Hardt IV, 757. In the Hist. Hardt. In that account the chronological 
 Hieronym. opp. II, fol. 352, 2, the ac- order of events seems not to have been re- 
 count does not seem to be so exact as in garded. According to the acts, Jerome 
 the copy of the acts of the council in V. d. spoke these words at the conclusion of his 
 
 32* 
 
878 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 claration of Jerome "was his death-warrant. But partly bv his elo- 
 quence and presence of mind, contrasted Avith his emaciated looks, in 
 which were depicted the marks of his long and severe imprisonment, 
 he had excited so deep a sympathy in many, that they were anxious 
 to save him ; and partly, they were loath to excite to a still higlier 
 degree, by this new martyrdom, the angry feelings of the Bohemians. 
 A respite of forty days was therefore given him for reflection.' Let 
 us hear how an eye-witness, a man quite destitute of susceptibility to 
 religious impressions, one of the restorers of ancient literature, Pog- 
 gio of Florence, the chosen orator of the council of Constance, ex- 
 presses himself when speaking of the impression which this discourse 
 of Jerome could not fail to make on all that heard it. lie savs, in a 
 letter to his friend Aretino, or Leonard Bruno of Merezzo : " He had 
 for three hundred and forty days^ been pining away in a dark tower 
 full of offensive effluvia. He had himself complained of the harsh 
 severity of such confinement, savins; that he, as became a steadfast 
 man, dkl not murmur at being forced to endure such unworthy treat- 
 ment, but that he could not help being astonished at the cruelty of 
 men towards him. It was a place where he could not even see, much 
 less read or write. I pass over the mental anguish which must have 
 daily tortured him, and which was enough to destroy the power 
 of memory itself within him. He cited so many learned and wise 
 men as witnesses in behalf of his opinions, so many teachers of the 
 
 speech, on the 26th of May, and thus the mihi rcddetis rationem, which had some 
 bef^inning and the conclusion of this speech connection also with the really prophetic 
 agree very well togetlicr. According to utterances which we meet with in Iluss. 
 the report in tlie Hist. Hieronym., Jerome, But, in Huss, we find a prophetic con- 
 on the contrary, did not speak these words sciousness, such as is ever wont to be pos- 
 until the .3()th of May, after the speech in- sessed by the witnesses of evangelical 
 troducing the motion for his trial. More- truth in contending against Anticliristian 
 over, the stvle of laniruaire in the acts errors, — the consciousness that the truth, 
 wears more the impress of originality, of which they serve as the organs, will not 
 We find in the other review of facts in the succumb in the contest, but come fortb out 
 Hist, llier., vague or indelinite statements of it triumphant and more resj)lendent 
 exchanged for others more definite. For than before. Huss was fully convinced 
 example, in the acts, the words run : Quod and assured, as we have seen, that al- 
 aiin rtci post banc vitam halK'rent videre though he himself must jicrish in this con- 
 Hievonymuin eos praecedcre et cos omnes test, yet still more powerful preachers of 
 nd judiciuju vocare. In tlio Hist. Hier., on the truth and champions for it than he 
 the other hand, the indetiinte expression was, would l)e raised up after him by the 
 una vice is converted into '"a hundred years Spirit of God. But, Huss had no distinct 
 after this life," for which we can see no individual, as Luther, before his mind, and 
 reason whatever, even though we suppose his thoughts were rather upon Bohemia 
 a reference to the German reformation, than upon Germany. We can only say : 
 which, however, would not l)e suitable in What the spirit of prophecy inspired in 
 this connection even if considered as a pro- the mind of Huss went into fulfilment, but 
 phecy. The passage in tiie Hist. Hier. is in a dirtV-rent way from what he supj)Osed, 
 as follows : Cito vos omiies, ut respondi- What began in Bohemia, and ])enshed 
 catis mibi coram altissimo et justissimo jn- after the stormy scenes that followed, was 
 dice infra centum annos. We see how these carried trium])hantly throu;:h in Germany 
 words, by gradual changes, and by being by the more mighty reformer, 
 transferred from Jerome to Huss. gave oc- ' It is singular that Poggio mentions 
 casion to that pro|)hecy of Luther wliich only a two days' respite, 
 was ascril)ed to Huss. and which has been ' [We ought doubtless to read CCCLX 
 handed down to posterity by the medals for CCCXL, though certainly it stands 
 commemorative of the jubilee of the re- thus written in V. d. Hardt, HI, 69. Ed.] 
 formation : Centum revolutis annis deo et 
 
TRIAL OF JEROME OF PRAGUE. 379 
 
 cliiircli, that they would have sufficed, if he liad passed the nliole of 
 this time in all quietness in the study of wisdom. Ilis voice was 
 pleasant, clear, full-sounding, accompanied with a certain dignity ; his 
 gestures adapted to excite indignation or pity, which, however, he 
 neither asked for, nor sought to obtain. He stood up fearlessly, un- 
 daunted, not merely contemning death, but even demanding it, so that 
 one might look upon him as a second Cato. 0, what a man, a man 
 worthy of everlasting remembrance ! " ^ Meantime, he was visited in 
 his prison by several of the most considerable men of the council, who 
 hoped that he might be prevailed on to recant. Among these was 
 Cardinal Francis Zabarella. But Jerome continued steadfast to the 
 end. 
 
 The thirtieth of i\Tay was now appointed as the day for passin,f and 
 executing the sentence on Jerome. After the bishop on whom this 
 office was devolved by the council, had made his discourse introducino- 
 the motion to pass sentence on Jerome, the latter began with a loud 
 voice to address those who were present. He refuted what the bishop 
 had said ; protested his innocence ; complained of the perversion of 
 his language, and inveighed against the corruption of a clergy aban- 
 doned to luxury and self-enjoyment, rioting in pleasures at the' expense 
 of the poor. The sentence of the council having been pronounced on 
 him, he was delivered over to the secular arm. He then commended 
 himself to God, and singing psalms and hymns allowed himself to be 
 led to the place of execution. On arriving at the spot where Huss 
 had suffered martyrdom, and where he himself was to follow him, he 
 fell on his knees and offered up a long and fervent prayer, so that the 
 executioner, growing impatient, he had to be lifted up from the earth. 
 Whilst they were fastening him with a chain to the stake, and arrang- 
 ing the faggots around him, he sang a spiritual song in praise of the 
 day that brought him martyrdom. The fire being lighted behind his 
 back, lest he might see it and be terrified, he called to the executioner 
 to light it before his eyes, " For — said he — if I had been afraid of 
 this fire, I should not have come here ! " And then addressing the 
 assembled crowd in the German language he said : " My beloved chil- 
 dren, as I have sung, so and no otherwise do I believe. But the cause 
 for which I now die is this, that I would not agree with the council in 
 affirming ^ that Master Huss was justly condemned by them. For I 
 had^ truly known him, as a genuine preacher of the Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ." When the fire was kindled, he repeated in a loud voice, 
 " Into thy hands, God, I commit my spirit." And afterwards, when 
 already suffering the deadly torture of the flames, he said, in the Bo- 
 hemian language : '' Lord God, have pity on me, forgive me my sins, 
 for thou knowest I have sincerely loved thy truth." His voice could 
 no longer be heard, but his lips appeared amidst the flames as if 
 moving in prayer. The eye-witness, Poggio, then describes the im- 
 pression which the martyrdom of Jerome made on him, though he 
 found it impossible to comprehend what gave him the power so to 
 
 ^ V. d. Hardt III, pag. 69. 2 Poggio, in V. d. Hardt, HI, pag. 71. 
 
380 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 die. " With cheerful looks he went readily and willingly to his death ; 
 he feared neither death, nor the fire and its torture. No stoic ever 
 Buffered death with so firm a soul, as that with which he seemed to de- 
 mand it. Jerome endured the torments of the fire with more tran- 
 quillity than Socrates displayed in drinking his cup of hemlock." * 
 
 III. The Friends of God in Germany. 
 
 While the contests between the popes, since the time of John the 
 Twenty Second and the emperor Louis the Fourtli, were important on 
 account of their influence on the advancement of the church by pro- 
 moting'- f'reater freedom of inquiry into ecclesiastical law and reactions 
 GgainS the absolute power of the popes, there were other important 
 influences also resulting from the same causes on the movements of 
 the religious spirit. In particular, there was partly called forth and partly 
 promoted by these contests a religious fermentation among the German 
 people, of which the after consequences lasted for a long time. These 
 influences, however, we must contemplate in their connection with 
 other disturbances in the world, and other significant appearances. 
 Great physical and mental suffering grew out of these contests ; many 
 minds were profoundly disquieted by the interdict, the suspension of 
 divine worship, the absence of church blessings, where the need of 
 them was most deeply felt. Add to this the desolating effects pro- 
 duced by one of those pestilences often witnessed, among the signs of 
 a time preparing by the dissolution of the old for a new creation, by 
 virtue of an inscrutable connection between physical and spiritual 
 development on this earth ; between history and nature, under the 
 guiding hand of that wise providence which makes all power sub- 
 servient to one highest end. And such pestilences serve the double 
 purpose of arousing slumbering minds to thought, and of making them 
 conscious of their true condition. At the time of which we are speak- 
 ing, all the causes above mentioned conspired together to bring the 
 church to a consciousness of her deep corruption, to ])oint her away 
 from the physical to the spiritual distress, to awaken in her a remem- 
 brance of God's judgments, to direct her eye tu the hidden future, 
 leading men, with the Prophets and the Apocalypse for their guides, 
 to study the signs of the last times. And so in fact it came about 
 that many thought they saw very near at hand the coming of anti- 
 christ and the second advent of Christ, or a new spiritual revelation 
 of Christ to execute judgment on a corrupt church, and prepare the 
 ■way for restoring it to greater glory. Out of all this proceeded, 
 on the one hand, divers movements of a fanatical spirit, and on the 
 
 ' V. (L Ilardt, III, pag. 70. We may says: Pcrtulerunt ambo constanti animo 
 
 also compare here the words with wliich necem, et quasi ad epulas invitati ad in* 
 
 another man of this period, who likewise cendium properarunt, nullum cmittentes 
 
 ■was incapal)le of understanding,' tlie spirit voeein, (piac miseri animi faoere posset 
 
 ■wliich animated these men, Aeneas Sil\io indicium. Nemo philosophorum tam forti 
 
 Piccolomini, expresses his admir:iii<n, animo mortem pcrtulisse traditur, cpiaiii 
 
 ■when, speaking of lluss and Jerome, he isti inceudium. Uistor. bohcmiea, pag. 34. 
 
FRIENDS OF GOD IN GERMANY. 381 
 
 other, contemplations of a more sober and profound christian serious- 
 ness. We are speaking of movements which continued long to propa- 
 gate themselves, reaching into the fifteenth century. The prophecies 
 of a Hildegard ; the writings, genuine and spurious, of an abbot Joa- 
 chim, supplied nutriment to such tendencies. The physical and 
 spiritual sufferings of that distressful period awakened a more pro- 
 found sense of religious need. In the common church theology such 
 a need could find no satisfaction ; from the common clergy, the indi- 
 viduals in whom this sense of need had been awakened, could expect 
 no assistance. One peculiar characteristic for which the German race 
 has ever been distinguished, is their profound sense of the religious 
 element, seated in the inmost depths of the soul ; their readiness to be 
 impelled by the discordant strifes of the external world, and unfruitful 
 human ordinances, to seek and find God in the deep recesses of their 
 own hearts, and to experience a hidden life in God springing forth in 
 opposition to barren conceptions of the abstract intellect that leave the 
 heart cold and dead, a mechanism that converts religion into a mere 
 round of outward ceremonies. John Nieder, a dominican of the fif- 
 teenth century, relates in a book of his containing many remarkable 
 passages regarding the internal religious life, in this and the next fol- 
 lowing times,! that in Germany it was a custom with men and women, 
 not only of the lower orders but in noble families, to set apart 07ie hour 
 at least of every day to meditation on the benefits they owed to the 
 sufferings of Christ, that they might be the better prepared for the 
 patient endurance of trials and the exercise of all the virtues.2 Thus 
 arose among clergymen, monks, and laymen, of both sexes, the ten- 
 dency to a mysticism that gave depth to the religious element. This 
 tendency, which at first had developed itself in conflict with the be- 
 ginnings of the scholastic theology, afterw^ards fell in with it, and was 
 now beginning to shape itself in a more independent way and to gain 
 greater influence, especially upon the popular life, in Germany. As 
 early as the close of the thirteenth century, the way for this had already 
 been prepared ; but by the causes above mentioned it was still further 
 promoted. Thus in the midst of this general distress and these dis- 
 cords of the times, we see that affiliated societies, growing out of one 
 spirit, w^ere formed in south and west Germany and spread as far as 
 the Netherlands, or from the Netherlands back to Germany, having 
 their principal seats in Strasburg, Basle, Cologne, and Nurenberg, 
 whose members were called, both by themselves and others. Friends 
 of God. Not that it was intended thereby to designate an exclusive 
 party or sect, but simply to denote a certain stage of spiritual life, the 
 stage of disinterested love to God ; a love free from all desire of re- 
 ward as the predominating affection, and opposed to a state of the 
 affections still under bondage, where the man seeks in God something 
 
 ' Formicarius ed. v. d. Hardt. Hlcrast. hora aliqui, summum humano generi im- 
 
 1696. pensum beneticium, Christi passionem. me- 
 
 ' Est consuetudo laudabilis multorura, ditari ac repetere, ut exinde, deo gvati, ma- 
 ne dicam plebeorum utriusque sexus in la mundi ferant patientius et virtutes ope- 
 Alemmaunia, verum etiam magnatum et rentur facilius. Pag. 133. 
 nobilium, ad minus semel die naturali, 
 
382 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 other than God himself. The scripture which seemed to authorize 
 this distinction and opposition between servants and friends of God, 
 were our Saviour's words in John 15 : 15, which are thus explained by 
 one of these Friends of God, the dominican John Tauler : " Therefore 
 did our Lord say to his disciples, ' Henceforth I call you not servants, 
 but friends.' The ' henceforth' was from the time they forsook all and fol- 
 lowed him ; then they were his friend>f and no longer servants." i The 
 same opposition is expressed again by this writer, where he distinguishes 
 between those that carried within them the false ground, those imder 
 bondage to the Avorld, and the true friends of God, who, without any 
 separate will of their own, referred all things to God.2 Men were to 
 be found among them, who had carefully studied the scholastic the- 
 ology, who occasionally display a certain refinement and subtlety of 
 conceptual distinction, and make some use of an exact classification of 
 the mental faculties. Such men were Tauler and Ruysbroch. But 
 still the theoloi'v growin*;^ out of a living; intercourse with God, and 
 grounded in the internal experiences of the spiritual life, was opposed 
 to the former and considered far superior to it. They pointed away 
 from the strifes and contests of the scholastic theologians, which served 
 to bewilder the mind, to those fountains of knowledge within. Thus 
 Tauler warns against the propensity to pry into the mystery of trinity, 
 holding that such matters should be left to the great masters at the 
 universities ; and even their disputations on these subjects he consid- 
 ers simply as make-shifts to dispose of the objections of heretics ; not 
 as though they could fathom the incomprehensible. '• Let the great 
 teachers study and dispute upon these matters. Yet in awkwardness 
 of art they must still (with permission) stammer for the sake of Holy 
 Church, looking about to see if they can possibly so express them- 
 selves as that she may not come into difficulty on account of heresy."^ 
 Tauler inveighs against those, " who spoil that which should be born 
 in the spirit, by boasting of reason, whether it be doctrine, or truth, or 
 whatever else it may be, — by pretending that they understand it, and 
 can talk of it, and so seem to be, and are somewhat pniTed up, though 
 they bring the matter neither into life nor practice." He says : 
 " Natural light, compared with the divine light, is less than a lighted 
 taper to the noon-day sun." 4 Accordingly, he says of the true inward 
 man, to which our Saviour's words, ' the kingdom of God is within 
 you,' applies, that "here, these friends of God find truly and clearly 
 the truth, which is unknown to all who do not dwell in this ground, 
 nor keep themselves free and empty with regard to all creatures. 
 "Wherefore, beloved children, the masters of Paris diligently read the 
 books, and turn over the leaves ; this is something ; this is pretty 
 well ; but these men read the true living book, where all is life." ^ 
 
 ' Sec Schmklt, in his work, "Johannes and in the Francfort edition of the year 
 
 Tauler von Strashurg,"' which contains so 1826. Vol. I, p. 203. 
 
 many richly instructive remarks, e.\|ilana- ^ Taulers Sermons, Bas. cd. fol. 57 b; 
 
 tnrv of thea})pcaranccs we arecon sidering. Fr. ed. II. p. 167. 
 
 lianil.urt:, 1841. P. 165. " Bas. ed. fol. 42 a ; Fr. ed. IT, p. 101. 
 
 ' See the words in the Basel edition of * Bas. ed. fol. 135 a; Fr. ed. Ill, p. 220. 
 his Sermons, of the year 1522, fol. 27 b; 
 
FRIENDS OF GOD IN GERMANY. 383 
 
 From the number of these Friends of God came those monks and ec- 
 clesiastics who took the hveliest interest in the s[)iritual guidance of 
 the laity, preached in the German language, and labored not merely 
 to educate the laity to orthodox thinking, to the devotional exercises 
 of the church, to mortifications, and to various kinds of good works, 
 but to lead them forward to a deeper experience of Christianity, to a 
 truly divine life according to their own understanding of it. Great 
 and striking was the diilerence between the common preachers who 
 were eager to display their own acuteness and learning, who amused 
 the people with tales and legends, warned them only against the 
 grosser sins, and recommended almsgiving and donations to the 
 church? and these preachers belonging to the Friends of God^, Avho 
 entered profoundly into the internal religious life, and sought to trace 
 sanctification back to a hidden life in God as its inmost ground. 
 Great and striking the difference between those who had no other 
 object in view than to work on the imagination by descriptions of hell 
 and of purgatory, and thus to frighten men from sin or drive them to 
 purchase indulgences, and those men who pointed beyond fear and the 
 hope of reward, to the love of God which could desire no higher por- 
 tion than Himself ! From the number of these Friends of God came 
 those priests, who, scorning to be troubled by the common scruples 
 during the time of the papal interdict and amidst the ravages of the 
 Black Death, bestowed the consolations of religion on the forsaken 
 people. They put forth from Strasburg, a letter addressed to the 
 collective body of the clergy, arguing to show the injustice and wrong 
 of leaving the poor, ignorant people to die under the ban.i Thus 
 Tauler in Strasburg, without fear of the black vomit, which carried 
 off" many of the clergy, labored incessantly during the interdict for 
 the welfare of the people.^ These Friends of God could pursue their 
 work with the less opposition, because they recognized in all the stand- 
 ing regulations of the church the divine appointment ; because they 
 followed the principle of passive obedience,' where it did not directly 
 contradict the demands of their own consciences, and strictly submitted 
 to their ecclesiastical superiors. They recommended the conscientious 
 discharge of all duties required by the church laws, looked upon 
 every outward exercise of religion prescribed by the church as a pre- 
 paration for a higher stage of spiritual perfection ; and yet they knew 
 how to warn men at the same time against all externalization of re- 
 
 1 I Schmidt p. 52. longer have any safe residence in this 
 
 2 So the Dominican, Ilcinrich von Nord- country." H.id. pag. 881. Margaretha 
 lino-en, expresses his joy over tlie great Ebnerin, of xVltorf, who stood on terms ot 
 work wliicli the Lord wrought throuirh intimate connection with tlie Inends ot 
 him in tlie hearts of men in the midst of God, obtained the assurance by a vision, 
 wretchedness ; and he remarks, tliat he that she should have enough in the mvisi- 
 would prefer to die bv the black vomit ble communion with Christ, even while 
 rather to do anvthing' against the Lord, the participation of the holy supper was 
 Heumanni opuscula, Norimb. 1747, pag. denied to her through the mterdict. It 
 393. This person experienced persecu- was said to her: Christ would comtort her 
 tion from the power of the emperor. He with his words ; and with these she should 
 writes : " I have been before the princes give strength to the people, ibid. pag. 
 of this world, w^ho treat me so, that I no 340 
 
884 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRIXE. 
 
 ligion and supposed merltoriousness of good works. They pointed 
 constantly from external things to the more hidden depths of the 
 religious life. Thus Tauler, in a sermon where he compares many 
 prelates of his time -svith blind leaders of the blind, after having spoken 
 of the several gradations of spiritual superiors, from the pope down- 
 wards, remarks : " Were they all disposed to treat me ill, to be wolves 
 to me, and snap at me, I am still to lay myself in true resignation and 
 submissiveness hvunblv at their feet, and to do it without murmur or 
 gainsaying." i The same preacher says : " Behold, for this, have all 
 works been invented and devised, with good exercises of virtue, such as 
 prayer, reading, singing, fasting, watching and kneeling, and whatever 
 other virtuous exercises there may be, that the man may be occupied 
 therewith and kept away from foreign, unsuitable, ungodly things." 2 
 Know, that shouldst thou let thyself be stabbed a thousand times a 
 day, and come to life again ; shouldst thou let thyself be strung to a 
 wheel, and eat thorns and stones ; with all this, thou couldst not over- 
 come sin of thyself. ' But sink thyself into the deep, unfathomable 
 mercy of God, with a humble, submissive will, under God and all 
 creatures, and know that then alone Christ would give it thee, out 
 of his great kindness, and free goodness, and love, and compas- 
 sion." 3 We may quote the beautiful words where he describes 
 love as a power mightier than all outward discipline to overcome the 
 obstinate strivings of sin and sense in man. He says : " Now mark, 
 all pcnance-life has been devised for this purpose among other things, 
 whether it be vigils, fasting, weeping, praying, taking discipline, hair- 
 shirts, hard beds, and whatever else, it is all for this — that body and 
 flesh being at all times against the spirit, they are much too strong for it." 
 These outward disciplines, therefore, he regards as a means of giving 
 preponderance to the spirit by weakening the flesh, as he says, " and for 
 this, that we may come to the help of the spirit in these straits, may 
 somewhat cripple the flesh in this conflict by putting upon it the 
 curb of penitence, and so bringing it down that the spirit may have 
 a chance to recover itself." Then speaking of love, as a much higher 
 power to subdue the flesh, he says : " Wouldst thou master and break 
 it in a thousand times better way ? then lay upon it the curb and fet- 
 ters of love ; with that thou wilt overcome it easiest of all, and with 
 love thou wilt load it heaviest of all."'* He characterizes reliance on 
 one's own good works as a thing more Jewish than Christian, and says : 
 " This Jewish way many people have ; they stand upon their own 
 waj^s and works ; they would verily have these for their foundation ; 
 and when they have done their work, the whole is lost ; yet they can 
 neither believe God, nor any one else who tells them they are se- 
 cretly building on their works and upon their own doings." And he 
 proceeds to say, " I do not mean that we ought to omit good discipline ; 
 we should be ever exercising ourselves in it ; but we should not build 
 jn it, nor rely on it." And he spoke against those who were looking 
 
 > Bas. ed. fol. 6 b; Fr. cd. I, p. 134. ^ p.^^ p,| f,^l 34 ^ ; Fr. ep. I. p. 280. 
 
 « Bas. ed. fol. 17 a; Fr. cd. I, p. 127. * Bas. ed. fol. 14 a ; Fr. cd. I, p. 159. 
 
FRIENDS OF QOD IX GERMAMY. 385 
 
 for access to God by such ways as the fullowinrr, " that thej wore hair- 
 shirts, and hair-neckcloths, that they fasted, and watclied, and prayed ; 
 that they had for forty years been poor men." And, he adds: "If 
 you have done all the human works that have ever been done, yet of 
 all this you shall be bare and empty in your ;^round as those that have 
 done no good work, small or great, other than grace for grace and 
 what has come from the great mercy of God, without any reservation 
 of confidence in your own preparation." ^ Ruysbroch, speaking of the 
 outward expression of christian love, says : " In the showing forth of 
 this love thou wilt observe thy good customs, at tlie same time also the 
 rules of thy monastic order, good manners, good works, and all ap- 
 pointed and regular outward discipline, according to the command- 
 ments of God and the rules and regulations of Holy Church." " If 
 — :say» he — thou rightly understandest the nature of love, thou 
 wilt govern thyself, and be able easily to overcome the world, and wilt 
 daily die to sin, and lead a life of striving after virtue." Only he re- 
 quires that the soul should free itself entirely from all outward and 
 creaturely objects, cling to them in no way ; that it should freely enter 
 into its own deepest recesses, so as to rise upward from this centre 
 to God, in a total estrangement of this inmost centre from the world. 
 From this centre of its being the soul should sink and lose itself in 
 God. Strive after this alone, that thou become free from form and 
 image, become master of thyself; so thou wilt be able as often as thou 
 choosest to turn thy heart and eye upward, where thy treasure and 
 thy heart are ; and thou wilt preserve one life with Ilim. Nor wilt 
 tliou suffer the grace of God within thee to be idle, but from true love 
 wilt exercise thyself heavenward, in praising God ; below, in all forms 
 of virtue and good actions. And, in whatever outward acts thou art 
 employed, let thy heart be free and disengaged from all, so that as oft 
 as thou choosest, thou mayest be able, through all and above all, to 
 contemplate him whom thou lovest."^ '*^ Obedience — he says — makes 
 men submissive to the commands, precepts, and will of God ; subjects 
 sense and the power of sense to the higher reason, so that the man 
 lives becomingly and in conformity to reason. It makes him sub- 
 missive also to the church, and its sacraments ; to its superiors, and 
 to all the doctrines and rules of the church. "3 A^ain, he savs : 
 *' Show thyself willing and obedient not only to God, but also to the 
 prelates in all good rules and exercises, which are commonly observed 
 in holy chui^ch ; and this according to the measure of thy powders 
 and with true sobriety, as well as according to the manners and cus- 
 toms of the men with whom thou livest, and also of the country and 
 district where thou dwellest."'^ He represents, it is true, the outward 
 exercises of penance as a subordinate thing, and makes internal peni- 
 tence the essential matter ; but yet he holds the former to be good 
 in its proper plac6, and remarks, " that we may find many, who seem 
 
 * Bas. od. fol. 33 b ; Fr. ed. II, pp. 59, 60. ' De praecipuis quibusdam virtutibus, 
 
 ' Kusbroch, speculum aeternae sa utis, ibid. pag. 170. 
 
 opp. Colon. Agripp. 1692, pag. 11 (ed. ann. ■* De septem amoris gradibus,.pag. 221. 
 1609, pag. 21). 
 
 VOL. V. 33 
 
886 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTBIXE. 
 
 to themselves accomplisliing much in the way of penance, when they 
 practise many great, severe, and outward forms of discipline, as for in- 
 stance, fastings, watchings, and other like works of penitence ; which, 
 indeed, are without doubt well-pleasing to God, and necessary for him 
 who does the penance ; yet, the truest and best penance, and that by 
 which one gets nearest to God, is to turn, truly ami from the heart, to 
 Him, and to every virtue, for God's sake ; at tlie same time, t'lrning 
 entirely away from everything known to be at variance wi:h God, so 
 as to feel a firm assurance in one's self that one cannot be moved, by 
 anything that may happen to do anything of the kind, and then to 
 have a firm confidence in the goodness of God that He will never 
 cease to supply all needful aid." ' Respecting fasts, he says : " Ra- 
 tional or spiritual works are to be preferred before barely outward 
 ^i'orks, and to be held of more account than the latter. Yet to the 
 utmost extent of our capability, love must be maintained by good 
 works. Christ fasted forty days. Imitate him in this, and fast in a 
 spiritual manner, keeping thyself from all sin ; and, also, to the ex- 
 tent of thy ability, in a bodily manner." 
 
 But although these friends of God conscientiously adhered to the 
 forms of the church, and by their silent, unobtrusive piety, and their 
 active charity, could hardly fail to secure the confidence and respect 
 of the people, whose contempt the common ecclesiastics had drawn 
 down upon themselves, still they had their o|)ponents ; partly those 
 who v>'ere zealous to maintain the common position of the church, and 
 whose suspicions were excited by that more liberal spirit of the Friends 
 of God which shone so conspicuously through their conscientious at- 
 tachment to the church ; partly the advocates of a secularized Chris- 
 tianity, who felt themselves annoyed by the more serious christian life 
 of the Friends of God. Accordingly they were nick-named after the 
 common fashion in that age of applying some opprobrious epithet to 
 those who, for one reason or another, were looked upon as enthusiasts 
 or pietists ; they were called Beghards — people who prayed much. 
 John Ruysbroch says : " Though the servant of the Lord shows himself 
 faithful in outward exercises and works, yet he has no experience of that 
 which the secret friends of (jodi feel. And this is the reason why such 
 inexperienced and outward men find fault with those who apply them- 
 selves to the internal exercises. They suppose that such persons are 
 wholly idle ; like Martha, who complained to the Lord of her sister, 
 that she paid him no attention." 2 And Tauler, speaking of those 
 among the Jews who were hostile to Christ as if they had hearts of 
 stone, says : " Alas ! why should it be, that we still find christian men 
 who, when they see God's friends in good ways, in good works, im- 
 mediately harbor ill will towards them, become at heart bitterly opposed 
 to them, count as nothing their works which they do, and their ways 
 and their life, and invent such glosses about them or against them as 
 to prove themselves to be just like those bad Jews." *^ In a noticeable 
 
 ' De praec. quibusd. virt., pag. 185. ' Bas. ed. fol. 32 b; Fr. ed. 11. p. 57. 
 
 " J)e calculo, pag. 825. 
 
FRIENDS OF GOD IN GERMANY. 387 
 
 passage Tauler speaks against a certain class, wliom he tlms character- 
 izes : " the poor blind people think that the precious sufferings of our 
 Lord Christ were to pass off in sport and without fruit. Tlieir reliance 
 is this, that they stand in fraternity with some spiritual order (the fratres 
 adscript!), that they pray and read ; nay — says he — thou doest all 
 this without love and without devotion, with a distracted heart, so 
 blindly and coldly, that it is a wonder to think of it." lie then says : 
 They confessed in words, but not with a whole will and from the bottom 
 of the heart : the}'- received the Lord's body ; but it was very much as 
 if one should invite a king into his house and then place him in an un- 
 clean, offensive stall among the swine. It were a thousand times bet- 
 ter for them, if they never received it. And if any one took pains to 
 warn them of the danger of their position, they laugiied at him and 
 said : " It is all Beghards' talk, or nun's twaddle." ' These Friends 
 of God exercised a great influence over the laity, not only by their 
 preaching and attention to common pastoral duties, but it was a part 
 of the system for those among the laity who longed after that higher 
 stage of christian life set forth by the Friends of God in their sermons, 
 to surrender themselves entirely up to some individual as their confes- 
 sor and guide in the spiritual life, and follow his instructions as if it 
 were a voice from heaven. This was simply carrying out the doctrine 
 of those mystics who taught that it was a duty to follow implicitly the 
 guidance of those who were recognized as organs of God. And un- 
 questionably in these times, when the deep-felt and often times wrongly 
 interpreted sense of religious need, the high state of religious excite- 
 ment in connection with the low state of christian knowledge, exposed 
 men to dangerous temptations, and the more as their aspirations rose 
 higher ; when, by abandoning themselves to their feelings, they would 
 be very hkely to fall into dangerous extravagances ; earnest, inquiring, 
 but ignorant minds did greatly need the guidance of some prudent in- 
 dividual, experienced in the trials and conflicts of the spiritual lite. 
 Well then migjht Tauler, after describinii; the dani^rers which beset him 
 who strove after such an object, add : " Therefore the safer course for 
 those who would fain live for the truth, is to have a friend of God, and 
 submit to be guided by him according to God's Spirit. Fighty miles 
 or more would not be too far to go in search of a friend of God who 
 knew the right way and could direct them in it." 2 And in another 
 sermon, where he labors to show how difficult it is to attain true renun- 
 ciation of one's self and of natural things and to betake one's self solely 
 to God in the inmost depths of the spirit, he says : " Therefore entreat 
 the beloved friends of God that they would assist you in it, and then 
 give your whole self simply and solely to God and to the chosen friends 
 of God, that they may carry you along to God with themselves." 3 
 In some such relation to Tauler stood a remarkable man, afterward a 
 zealous member of the party of the Friends of God, Rulmann Merswin 
 
 ' Bas. ed. fol. 77 a; Fr. ed. II, p. 235. « Bas. ed. fol. 146 b; Fr. ed. Ill, p. 122 
 [The Francf. ed. Avhich in general is quite '^ Bas. ed. fol. 28 b ; Fr. ed. I, p. 265. 
 incorrect in its text, has, instead of i3eg- 
 harden, " Bejahrte." Ed.] 
 
388 HISTORY OF TUEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 of Strasburg. This person, "^ho belonged to one of the most respecta- 
 ble families of that city, was a rich broker and merchant. In his for- 
 tieth year (1347), after losing his first wife, lie contracted a second 
 marriage, and having no issue by either, he with the concurrence of his 
 second wife resolved to retire wholly from the world, lie applied his 
 great wealth to no other purpose than that of founding institutions of 
 christian charity. He had much to stru2:i2;le with in endeavoring]: to 
 attain to a godly life, being too much governed by his momentary feel- 
 ings. The natural and the divine element were strangely mixed up to- 
 gether in his character. He easily brought himself to believe that cer- 
 tain visions, the product of his own highly excited feelings and heated im- 
 agination were divine revelations. Tlie excessive mortifications which he 
 imposed on himself impaired his health, and the morbid affections which 
 he thus contracted may perhaps have exerted some disturbing influence 
 both on his feelings and on his intellect. Tauler, who, as we have seen, dis 
 approved of this mode of crucifying the flesh, being chosen by this man 
 as his guide, bade him, as a friend of God, to desist from these im- 
 moderate self-tortures, and not destroy his health ; for he was ex- 
 tremely anxious lest, by the course he was now pursuing he might sud- 
 denly become insane. Merswin, as he informs us himself, thought it 
 his duty to obey.^ In the year 1353 he composed, in the German 
 language, a widely circulated eccentric m3^stical work, under the im- 
 pulse, as he beheved, of a divine call, containing many strange and 
 fanciful notions mixed up with a good deal that is true. It was en- 
 titled the Book of the Nine Rocks. This work was included, though not 
 in its complete form, among the works of Henry Suso, and ascribed to 
 him as the author.2 With great freedom he here describes the corru|> 
 tion of the church through all its orders, from hi^zhest to lowest. 
 He says of the popes : " Look around and mark how the popes in these 
 times live and have lived, whether they have not had more regard for 
 themselves, more concern to know how thev shall maintain their own 
 state, than how the glory of God may be promoted ? And look around 
 and see whether they do not court temporal possessions with a view to 
 advance the interests of their temporal friends, and help on their pro- 
 motion to temporal honors." ^ It is deserving of notice that this man 
 was led, by the more liberal character of his mysticism, to (question in 
 this book the doctrine that all unbelievers are lost ; mantaining that, 
 among the Jews, Turks, and pagans, were many men of good life, 
 who would, before their end, be led by a particidar inward revelation 
 to the knowledge of a Saviour and to faith in him ; and that we shall 
 
 * Wc quote from the above mentioned imd pebot mir bi peliorsamme das ich 
 
 excellent work of Trof Sclimidt, of Stras- mich in keiiire nelninjicn soke me uebcn, 
 
 bur^f, to whom we are indebted for an ac- und malite mir duran ein zil. and ieh mus- 
 
 count of this man, eminently characteristie te ^ehorsam sin. Sehmidt. p. 178 note, 
 of the times in wliich he lived, Merswin's * That the work, however, is not to bo 
 
 own words on the sul)jeet: Und in densel- ascribed to him, l)ut to Mer>win, has been 
 
 ben ziten was bruoder Johans tauweler der jtroved on documentary evidence by Prof. 
 
 brediy;er min bichter. Der befant ettewas Schmidt, in his work above cited, p. 180. 
 
 minre ucbungen, wanne er nam es ware Compare also Ill;;en"s Zeitschriftliir hid- 
 
 das ich gar krauj^ in der natuoren periet torische Theolo^de. 1839, Heft. 2, p. 61. 
 werden. Und er vorhtc mins houbetes ^ Schmidt, p. 216. 
 
FRIENDS OF GOD IN GERMANY. 389 
 
 meet many such In the world to comeJ We see l>y tlie example of this 
 individual, how laymen as well as clergymen mi<^ht be enrolled among 
 the Friends of God ; and in the case of the former, who were not so 
 strictly educated in the theology of the schools, we see how it might 
 sometimes happen that they would be led, by this freer tendency of the 
 religious spirit, without being conscious of it or intending it, into many 
 unchurchly convictions, and how this might become a channel through 
 which the influence of unchurchly tendencies might be introduced 
 among the Friends of God generally. We cannot be surprized at the 
 fact, therefore, that among the Friends of God there were many sec- 
 tional diflerences, from a more strict churchly direction to a tendency 
 bordering on the heretical, or entirely heretical. 
 
 The position maintained by those friends of God, whose inward Chris- 
 tianity made them more free from the influence of the hierarchical 
 spirit, is characteristically presented before us, when we see a priest 
 of the Dominican order, and a famous preacher, placing himself in the 
 relation we have described to a layman who appeared to him more ad- 
 vanced than himself in holy living, and making that layman his guide in 
 the spiritual life. We meet with an ancient account 2 of a layman 
 living 120 miles from the city of Strasburg, who, by a divine call in 
 a thrice repeated vision, was conducted, in the year 1340, to Tauler, 
 then already a preacher of note. In his first interview he requested 
 the latter to preach before him a discourse on the way to christian per- 
 fection. The sermon did not produce the effect which Tauler expected ; 
 and the stranger afterwards explained to him that he had not come to 
 learn from him how to attain to the most perfect life, but with the in- 
 tention and hope of doing him some good. He then proceeded to 
 speak of that internal master, respecting whom Tauler himself had 
 spoken in his sermon. " Know," said he, " that when this same 
 master comes to me, he teaches me more in an hour, than you, and all 
 the teachers who are of time, could teach me if they went on to the 
 last day." And he assured Tauler to his great amazement, that he 
 must consider him a mere man of books and a pharisee. The pious 
 gentle preacher did not let himself grow angry at such language from 
 a layman addressed to a priest and doctor of theology, but instead of 
 disdainfully turning away from him, calmly listened to all he had 
 to say. The layman went on to distinguish two different sorts of phar- 
 isees, the malignant and the well intentioned ; those whose doctrines 
 and life, though they were unconscious of it themselves, did not per- 
 fectly harmonize ; whose preaching consisted more of the letter and 
 of rational knowledge, than of the truth contained in the life and in- 
 ternal experience of the heart ; who, though they knew how to discourse 
 finely of pure love to God, and of communion with him, were still en- 
 tangled in creaturely love, without any true experience as yet of vital 
 communion of the heart with God. Tauler felt himself touched to the 
 
 ^ The same, p. 219. This portion is not ' In the Hist, Tauleri in the Bas. edi- 
 included in the writings published under tion, before the Sermons, 
 the name of Suso. 
 
 33* 
 
390 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 quick bv manv tliinirs \Nhich the stranirer said. He cliose him as the 
 friend of God Avho was to be his giiido ; got him to prescribe the way 
 to a new spiritual development ; retired for a season from his labors 
 in the pulpit ; but on returning to his duties found himself so overcome 
 and unmanned bv his feeliniis, as to be unable to utter a word. The 
 preacher who was before so famous, was now laughed at. But after- 
 wards, when he had fully recovered liimself, he stood forth with fresh 
 energy and labored more abundantly than ever. This story, no better 
 authenticated, might be regarded by many as a figment of legendary 
 tradition, a pure fabrication or an intermixture of poetry and historical 
 truth. ^ But we have, in this case, at least one example which might 
 teach a lesson of caution to those who would banish from history every- 
 thing that looks like poetry, and retain the trivial only as matter of 
 historical fact. This story has very recently become established as 
 matter of history on the ground of authentic record.2 And we obtain 
 a more familiar acquaintance with the man as an historical personage, 
 who came, according to the legend, from a town 120 miles from Stras- 
 burg, . He was a person of great influence in that period, named Nich- 
 olas of Basle. He then belonged to the Waldensian sect, the members 
 of which would, for the reasons already hinted at, be very likely to 
 find in the more liberal christian tcndences of the Friends of God scat- 
 tered about in that district, many points of mutual agreement. But it 
 may be commonly remarked that when a determinate sj)iritual tendency 
 becomes predominant in any period or district, it is wont to impart some- 
 thing of its own peculiar stamp to other spiritual appearances that may 
 happen to possess anything in common with itself, though the two may 
 in other respects differ entirely in character, just as in the [)hysical 
 world a prevailing epidemic will make other f )rm3 of disease run into 
 its own form. Thus the Waldensians in the district of the Rhine, did 
 not at that time remain w^hoUv true to their oriiiinal direction, since 
 this at the outset was a more simply practical one. The predominant 
 spirit of mysticism communicated itself also to them ; and there grew 
 up a section of Waldensian Friends of God, which, paying less homage 
 than the others did to the church spirit, developed itself with greater 
 freedom of doctrine in opposition to the dominant church. To this 
 party belonged Nicholas, a man who by oral discourses and writings in 
 the Latin and German languages labored to introduce a more experi- 
 mental Christianity, and exerted a great and widely extended influence. 
 At Basle he had heard much about the piety and influence of Tauler.^ 
 But from his Waldensian point of view he might probably be- led to 
 conjecture that this famous preacher was after all wanting in true 
 freedom of christian spirit ; and from what he had heard of his pious, 
 humble character, he might perhaps hope to succeed in exercising a 
 
 ' This story, as is well known, has been ^ "Wc sec from Schmiflt's quotation p. 
 
 worked up into a book of great poetic 29 note, that in a Municli manuscript in 
 
 beautv.bv Tieck, in his novel '' der Schutz- the account of Tauler, the wonls of this 
 
 geist."' unknown layman are fouml, which are 
 
 ^ By the investigations of Schmidt, in wanting in the printed editions : " Wan 
 
 his work before cited, p. 25, note 5. mir vil von eucr ler daheim ist gcsagt." 
 
FRIENDS OF GOD IN GERMANY. 391 
 
 ■wholesome Influence on the christian knowledge and the christian life 
 of the man. It may well be doubted, indeed, whether Nicholas, who, 
 ■with a view to extend the sphere of his usefulness in promoting the 
 religious life, rarely mentioned his own anti-churchly tendencies, would 
 say anything to Tauler about his connection with the Waldensians ; 
 still it is impossible to know how much confidential intercommunication 
 may have taken place between the two men. And Tauler as long as 
 he lived continued to maintain the most intimate and friendly relations 
 with this layman. This Nicholas of Basle was, as we have said, ex- 
 tremely cautious in disseminating his principles. He laid himself out 
 to work on the minds of the people more particularly by writings in the 
 German language. In a tract composed in the year 1356, he defended 
 the circulation of German writings among the laity against the doubts 
 entertained by many of its expediency. He speaks on this matter also 
 ^vith great moderation. He allows that such doubts were, in some 
 respects, well founded ; in respect to writings, namely, which required 
 many explanations in order to be rightly understood, and which there- 
 fore by being misapprehended might easily lead to error. Such writ- 
 ing belonged exclusively to the priests, and should not be translated 
 into German. But the case stood otherwise with simple, practical, and 
 plainly composed christian writings, suited to the understanding and 
 •wants of the laity. He says " those book-learned men, who would 
 keep the laity from reading these, sought their own glory more than 
 the glory of God." " But," he adds, " where you find teachers, who 
 have no eye to themselves, you should gladly hear them ; for whatever 
 such teachers counsel, comes from the Holy Spirit." He says chris- 
 tian order can never be restored, till men follow the counsel which 
 comes from the Holy Spirit ; and such cannot be at variance with Holy 
 Scripture, for Holy Scripture and the Holy Spirit are one. ''If, he 
 adds, " a great lord of this world, or a whole district or city should 
 ask me how, as things now stand, men may return to God, and find 
 reconciliation with him, I would advise that they should seek that 
 counsel which comes from the Holy Spirit, whether such counsel pro- 
 ceed from priest or layman. " ^ In all this we may easily recognize 
 the general drift and tendency above described, though there is an at- 
 tempt to conceal it. \Ye recognize a man who estimated the inward 
 voice of the spirit above all outward authority, and who certainly there- 
 fore could not be inclined to pay that authority the same submissive 
 homage with other Friends of God. The mystical bent may un- 
 doubtedly have led many to entertain very free opinions respecting the 
 apostles, whose characters they would estimate according to their own 
 peculiar principles of christian perfection. It would not be strange i\ 
 such persons to accuse an apostle Paul of boasting too much of his own 
 labors. But Nicholas was widely removed from all this. He says of such, 
 '' Mark, my beloved brethren, how some men are scandalized at the 
 ■words of holy Paul, who was a bright shining light, a full vessel over- 
 flowing with lovely humility." All that he said to his brethren, or 
 
 . » Schmidt, p. 231. 
 
392 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 wrote to them, was suited to the times Avhen Christianity began ; and 
 there was need of it too. He wrote from divine love, and never had 
 an eye to himself; in all things he had a single eye to the glory of 
 God. And I believe if the words addressed to John the Baptist, had 
 been spoken to the apostle Paul, he would in like manner have answered, 
 '' I am not worthy to unloose his shoe's lachct." ^ This Nicholas 
 directly or indirectly exerted a great influence, as a guide and counsellor 
 in the spiritual life,*^on many who never had the remotest suspicion of 
 his heretical tendencies. But he could not always succeed in escaping 
 the suspicion of the head of the church ; and from some hints which 
 he drops we may understand the perilous situation in which these more 
 free-minded Friends of God sometimes found themselves placed. He 
 writes : "Ah, beloved brethren, may God in his infinite goodness, in 
 this present time of Christianity, have pity. For know, the Friends of 
 God are in a great strait. But what is to come of it, they know not, 
 God only knows." 2 Having succeeded through a long life in escaping 
 the snares of the inquisition,^ he undertook when very old, in company 
 with two of his disciples, to make a journey to France, where probably 
 be was in the habit of going to disseminate his doctrines. At Vienne, 
 he was arrested by the inquisition, together with one of his disciples ; 
 and as nothing could induce him to consent to a recantation, he was 
 handed over, as an heretical Beghard to the civil authorities, and died 
 
 at the stake. 
 
 The highest regions of the interior life in souls where impure elements 
 rule, are exposed to the most dangerous perturbations ; the deepest truths 
 of religion, when they are not purely apprehended, may intermingle 
 indistin^uishably with the most dangerous misconceptions. It is often 
 but a very thin and subtle line, which separates truth from error. Thus 
 the doctrine of these Friends of God respecting man's ability and duty 
 to go back to the deepest grounds of his being ; respecting an inward 
 concentration of the mind withdrawn from every thing creaturely ; 
 utter renunciation of self, and absorption in God, was liable to pass 
 over into very serious errors. Where the longing for union with God 
 was not ever accompanied side by side with a consciousness of the self- 
 subsistence of the creaturely spirit, and the infinite exaltation of God 
 above the world, witli a consciousness of sin standing in contrariety 
 with the holiness of God, with a humility never forgetting for a moment 
 the strict line that separates the creature from the Creator, the sobriety 
 and modesty of true humility ; where an unbridled imagination, a specu- 
 lative spirit ignorant of its proper limits, where the intoxication of a 
 Boul governed entirely by its feelings, intermingled with the natural 
 and the divine, and took complete possession of the man ; in a word, 
 where the mind, instead of holding fast to God revealed in Christ, 
 would sink itself, without any mediation, in the unfathomable abyss of 
 
 1 In a letter to the Strasburg Johan- tioncd, Formicurius. pag. 304 : Acutissi- 
 
 nites, in the vear 1377, Schmidt, p. 234. nuis enim cnit ct verbis crrores coloratissi- 
 
 ^ The same, p. 235. n^« vehire novorat. Idcirco etiam manus 
 
 =» The Dominican John Nicder, of Sua- in([uisitorum diu evaserat et multo tem- 
 
 bia, says of him in his book, already men- pore. 
 
FRIENDS OF GOD IN GERMANY. 393 
 
 God unrevealed ; in all these cases and tlie like, they v/ho know 
 not how to guard against such dangers, by strict watchfulness over 
 themselves, plunged into the gulf of [)anthcistic self-deification. Tliu3 
 arose that wildly fanatical pantheistic mysticism, which was for get- 
 ting beyond Christ, beyond all positive revelation, all humanization 
 of the divine, as we see it exemplified particularly among a portion 
 of the so-called Beghards, of whom we shall say more hereafter, as 
 well as among the so-called Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit, 
 
 — a community already characterized by their name, the advocates 
 of that false liberty, grounded in pantheism, which scorned all the set- 
 tled landmarks of holy order. Tlie opposition is strongly marked be- 
 tween the theistic Friends of God of whom we have thus far been speak- 
 ing, and the pantheistic class. While in the former we may see fore- 
 tokens of a direction which led to the Reformation ; in the latter Ave 
 see, no less clearly, the foretokens of a thoroughly antichristian ten- 
 dency, hostile to everything supernatural, every intimation of a God 
 above the world ; a tendency which contained, first in the form of mys- 
 ticism, the germ of absolute Rationalism and the deification of reason, 
 
 — a tendency which, after many attempts, often repelled and continu- 
 ally renewed, was eventually to appear in a contest for life and death 
 with Christianity itself. As the theistic element distinguished the first 
 class of the Friends of God from the second, so was it also a distin- 
 guishing mark between the two classes, that by the first it was held 
 necessary to unite the contemplative with the practical life, the intui- 
 tive absorption in God with active love ; while by the others, on the 
 contrary, a pantheistic quietism that despised all active labor, was ex- 
 tolled as the highest perfection. A sharply defined boundary may, in- 
 deed, be observed between these two ground-tendencies, wherever they 
 are fully and consciously expressed ; but these tendencies did not al- 
 ways so exhibit themselves as to be easily distinguished. Many, by 
 pushing the above mentioned ground-intuitions and tendencies of the re- 
 ligious fife into an extreme, by running into a sort of speculation which 
 was mixed up with the feelings, and failed of paying due respect to the 
 proper limits of all speculation, by a certain intoxication of self-forget- 
 ting love that discarded calm reflection, were unconsciously betrayed 
 into eifusions and expressions upon which that wild fanatical pantheism 
 might afterwards seize and fasten itself. We reckon among such that 
 Master Eckhart, of the Dominican order, whom Tauler mentions as his 
 teacher. This person, a Saxon by origin, stood in high estimation with 
 his order, having been made first provincial of the Dominican order for 
 Saxony, in the year 1304, when it was found expedient, on account of 
 the extent of territory, to separate this part of the order from that be- 
 longing to the rest of Germany and constitute it a province by itself.^ 
 We may mention in particular, for an example, that passage of Eck- 
 hart, where he describes God's essence as being the darkness from 
 which all things sprung, and to which they are to return : " Verily God 
 himself rests not there where he is the first beginning ; he rests there 
 
 * Quetif et Echard script, ord. praedic, Paris 1719, torn. I, fol. 507, VI. 
 
o 
 
 94 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 Tvbere he is an end and a rest of all being. Not that this being comes 
 to nothing, but it is there completed in its ultimate end according to its 
 highest perfection. AVhat is this ultimate end ? It is the hidden dark- 
 ness of the eternal Godhead, and is unknown, and will never be known. 
 God there remains unknown to himself; and the light of the Eternal Fa- 
 ther, this has eternally shone in there, and the darkness comprehend- 
 eth not the light." ' '^For another example, take his words on the Lo- 
 gos : " That ?s no longer an essence, then, which gives all things an 
 essence and life, when the Son is generated from the heart of the Father, 
 eternally to bring in again all things which in him have gone forth." 
 He cites, as referring to this, the words of Christ : " x\nd I, if I be 
 lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me," and then adds : 
 " The Holy Spirit proceeds forth as a love to make our spirit one with 
 him. Therefore the Son brings in again with him all things which in 
 him have gone forth. And therefore the Holy Spirit comes in again 
 with all that which he has spiritualized." 2 Eckhart defines as true 
 righteousness those works only which proceed, without reflection, from 
 tlie inward constraining influence of the divine life. " The just man — 
 he says — searches not into his own works. For they who seek for 
 anything in their own works, are all servants and hirelings ; or they 
 who work for some wherefore, whether it be blessedness, or eternal life, 
 or the kingdom of heaven, or whatever else in time or in eternity, all 
 such are not righteous. For righteousness consists in this, that a man 
 work without respect to a wherefore. And hence if thou wouldst be 
 zViformed or oi;er-formed in righteousness, think not of thy works, nor 
 image to thyself any wherefore, either in time or in eternity, either re- 
 ward or blessedness, either this thing or that thing. For all the w^orks 
 thou performest from the movement of the imagination, or out of the 
 imagination, verily these works are all dead. Nay, may I say it ? but I 
 wiirlay it, and it is this : that if thou dost image to thyself even God, 
 whatever thou doest from respect to this, I speak truly, thy works are all 
 dead ; they are faults, they are nothing, and they are not barely no- 
 thing, but thou destroyest by them even the works that are good." 3 
 AVe may mention, furthermore, that proposition, so variously abused by 
 fanatical y>antheism, that all which God works, man works with him. 
 Accordingly he asserts that the good works which a man performs while 
 in mortal sin, are not on that account lost ; evil and good works, in them- 
 selves considered, and the time in which they are done, are all lost ; 
 they have no abiding permanence except on the ground of the spirit 
 from which they proceed, and from this ground come the good works 
 also which may be done in mortal sin, and not from the man who is in 
 this mortal sin.2 There were extracted from Eckhart's writings and 
 
 ' Eckhart's Sermons, in an appendix to place in themselves. If the man does 
 
 the IIanil)ur<: edition (1621) of Tauler's good works, whilst he is in mortal sin, vet he 
 
 Sermons, p. 23. does not the works of mortal sin ; if the 
 
 2 Tlic same, p. 10. works are {;ood, the mortal sins are evil. 
 
 ^ The same p. 4. 1^^ works them out of the ground of his 
 
 * His own words are: So then labor sjtirit, which, in itself, is naturally good; 
 
 and time are lost to-ether : bad and good but he is not in gr.-iee. '• In a Sermon in 
 
 thev are all lost ai'once, if they have no Mone's " Anzeigcr fur Kunde der teut- 
 
 abiding in the spirit, au'^ no being nor schen Vorzcit." Jahrgang 1837, p. 72. 
 
miENDS OF GOD IX GERMANY. 305 
 
 sermons twenty-six propositions connected with a pantlieistic mode of 
 thinking, or verging upon such a mode of thinking, which found their 
 common point of iniion in assertions similar to those above quoted ; and 
 these were formally condemned. But as Eckhart gave up to this de- 
 cision, retracting those propositions in every sense in which they were 
 found heretical or scandalous, and in general submitted himself to be 
 corrected by the pope and the church, no further steps were takf^n 
 against him personally, and ho was permitted to end his days in peace. 
 But when it was found that similar doctrines were widely disseminated 
 among mystical societies, pope John XXII. put forth, in the year 1829, 
 a bull, complaining with justice that such doctrines were held forth in 
 sermons to the simple people.^ Yet in vindication of the memory of 
 the departed Eckhart, he immediately subjoined what has been stated 
 above. We may here quote a few of the most remarkable of these 
 propositions. It was asserted that God and the world are correlative 
 conceptions, and that it may be said God created the world from eter- 
 nity ;2 that in all works, good as well as evil, in their guilt and their 
 punishment, God is in like manner manifested and glorified ; that he 
 who prays for this or that particular thing, prays for what is bad in a 
 bad way, because he prays for a negation of the good and a negation 
 of God, and prays that God may be denied to him. In those who seek 
 for nothing, neither honor, nor profit, nor devotion, nor holiness, nor re- 
 ward, nor kingdom of heaven, but have renounced all, even that which 
 is their own, in such God is glorified. We are transformed Avholly into 
 God, and transformed into him in the same way as, in the sacrament, 
 the bread is transformed into the body of Christ. I become thus trans- 
 formed into him because it is he himself who brings it about that I am 
 his. All that the Father gave to his Son when born into human nature, 
 all this he has given to me ; I except nothing here, neither unity nor 
 holiness ; but he has given all to me as to himself. All that the holy 
 Scriptures say of Christ, is true also of every good and godlike man. 
 Everything that belongs to the divine essence, belongs also to the godly 
 and righteous man ; therefore such a person does all that God does, 
 and with God created the heavens and the earth, and is a begetter of 
 the eternal Word, and God can do nothing without such a person. 
 The frood man must make his own will so identical with God's will as 
 to will all that God wills ; because God, in a certain sense, wills that I 
 should have sinned, I ought not to wish that I had not sinned. God has 
 not, strictly speaking, laid down rules for outward action. All crea- 
 tures are purely nothing ; I say not that they are something, but purely 
 nothinc. There is in the soul something!; uncreated, and exalted above 
 all that is created ; if the whole soul were this, it would be itself un- 
 created and exalted above all that is created ; and this is spirit. 
 
 ^ Quae docuit quara maxime coram tunc, sicut nunc, quod deus non potuit 
 
 vulgo simplici in suis praedicationihus. primo producere mundum, quia res noQ 
 
 Comp. Raynaldi Ann. at the year 1329, potest agere antcquam sit, unde quam cito 
 
 no. 70 and'71. deus fuit, tam cito mundum creavit ; item 
 
 ' Interrogatus quandoque. quare deus concedi potest, mundum fuisse ab aetemo. 
 
 mundum non prius produxerit, respondit Ibid. 
 
895 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 God is neither good, nor the best ; it is just as incorrect to call him 
 so, as to call him black or -white. ^ 
 
 We may now consider how Ruysbroch and Taiiler contended against 
 the pantlieistic and ciuietistic vicvi, tlie mistaken strivings after freedom, 
 vdiich appeared in the forms wc have described. The former says : 2 
 " We mav meet with godless and devilish men, who affirm that they are 
 God or Christ, and that their hands created heaven and earth, and on 
 their hands all these things depend ; and that they are above all sacra- 
 ments of the church, that they need them not, and wish them not. The 
 ordinances of the church and what the holy fathers have recorded on 
 parchment, they despise ; but their own godless heresy, and a life 
 which is bound by no ordinances or institutions, and the beastly cus- 
 toms invented by themselves, they hold to be very holy and excellent. 
 And yet they have banished from themselves the love and fear of 
 God { and they disdain the knowledge of good and evil. But they 
 have found within themselves something transcendent, above reason ; 
 and they have wholly drunk in the opinion, that on the day of final 
 judgment all rational creatures, evil as well as good, angels and bad 
 Sj.iri'ts, will pass over into a certain essence, transcending representa- 
 tion, and that this essence is God, in its nature blessed, but without 
 knowledge or will. Since the beginning of time, there has never been 
 invented a more senseless or perverse opinion than this. And yet 
 many suffer themselves to be deceived by it, even of such as seem to 
 be spiritually minded, when in fiict they are worse than the demons 
 themselves. ^ For what they affirm is contradicted by pagans and by 
 Jews, by nature, law, reason, all that Scripture teaches concern- 
 ing good an<i bad angels." Ruysbroch next proceeds to distinguish 
 between tlie ideal and the reaf being of rational creatures. " The 
 life — says he — that we, in the divine idea, have in God, is one with 
 himself, and in its own nature a blessed one. But besides this, we 
 have another in common with the angels ; a life created by God from 
 nothing ; one which will always endure ; and such an one cannot be a 
 l)lessed one in its own nature ; but it can become a blessed one by 
 God's grace, if we attain to grace ; that is, to faith, hope, knowledge, 
 and love. If we attain to these, we practise thost3 virtues which are 
 pleasing to God, and thus rise above ourselves, and become united with 
 God ; yet a creature never becomes God." " We may meet with many 
 — says he in another place ^ — who imagine they have experienced 
 within themselves a certain true life, above all practice of virtue ; and 
 that they have combined a created and uncreated life, God and the 
 creature at once ; with regard to all which we should know that we 
 have a certain eternal life in the original type of the divine wisdom. 
 And this life ever abides in the Father, and proceeds forth from Him 
 with the Son, and flows back into the same essence with the Holy 
 
 ' This translation (Iocs not correspond, * Speculum aetcrnae salutis. 0pp. p. 
 it is true, to the I.:itin words: Ac si v^o 91 (cd. 1609, pa;,'. 50). 
 nll.um vocarem ni-ruin ; but I conjecture ^ Ibid. pag. 29. 
 from the sense that it should properly 
 read : album vocarem iiut nij^i-um. 
 
FRIENDS OF GOD IN GERMANY. 397 
 
 Spirit ; and thus we live in an eternal manner in the original type of 
 the holy trinity and of the unity of the Father." Tint from this he 
 distinguishes the created life, " which springs from the same wisdom 
 in wliich God knows his power, wisdom and goodness ; and this is the 
 image or copy of the former, by which the f )rmer lives in us. By 
 virtue of this image of the former, our life has three properties, where- 
 by we resemble that original type. For our essence ever contemplates 
 the original of our uncreated essence, lives in it, and feels drawn to- 
 wards it, where we live from God, live to God, live in God, and God 
 in us. This, then, he regards as the hidden, primordial ground of 
 creaturely spirits, whereby they are united in connection with that 
 architypal being to God. " This — he says — is the true ground of 
 life, and is in us all, as to essence, by virtue of mere nature. For it 
 is exalted above hope, faitli, grace, and all exercises of virtue, and 
 therefore its l)eing, life, and action are one. But this life is hidden in 
 God and in the essence of our souls. And because this dwells in us 
 all by nature, so, many may, in a certain way, even without grace or 
 faith, and without any exercise of virtue whatever, come to some 
 knowledge of it by natural reason." Accordingly, he now proceeds 
 to trace the misconceptions of those pantheists to their one-sided mode 
 of apprehending that hidden primordial ground separate from the 
 supernatural light of grace. " There are — says he — men given to 
 idle reverie, with introverted eyes, turned away from sensible images 
 to their own simple essence ; and when so turned they deem them- 
 selves blessed, holy ; some even look upon themselves as very God. 
 And they care about nothing, be it good or evil, if they can but rid 
 themselves of forms and images, and find and possess themselves in 
 the pure repose of their essence." So after speaking of the above 
 distinction between the ideal and the real being of the creaturely 
 spirit, he says : i " And yet we are not the wisdom of God ; for then 
 we should have created ourselves, which is impossible ; and to be- 
 lieve this, is godless and heretical. For all that we are and have, we 
 have from God and not from ourselves." Again, he says : ^ "In 
 communion with God we are one spirit and one life with him ; but still 
 we continue to be creatures. For though we have been transfigured 
 by his light, and absorbed by his love, yet we still know and feel that 
 we are something other than and different from Him. Hence it is 
 that v/e feel ourselves constrained ever to look up to him and to strive 
 towards him ; and this act will abide eternally with us. For never 
 will it be in our power to lose our created essence and so purely to 
 pass out from it that we shall not still, and through all eternity, con- 
 tinue to be something different from God. For though the Son of 
 God partook of our nature, yet he by no means made us God." How 
 personal consciousness still continues even at the highest point 
 reached by contemplation, in soaring upward to God, he shows thus i^ 
 '' Though we may rise above reason, still we are not without rea- 
 son ; hence we feel that we touch and are touched ; love and are 
 
 ^ Ibid. p. 31. 2 ii,i^j 3 Ibij. 
 
 VOL. V. 34 
 
398 HlSTORi' OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 beloved ; we are continually renewed, and return back into our- 
 selves ; we go and return, like lightning. For by love we contend 
 and brace ourselves, as if stemming a torrent, because we have not 
 power to press through and pass beyond the creaturely essence." 
 " Although — says he in another place' — love absorbs the soul, con- 
 sumes it, and even demands of it what is impossible, and although the 
 soul lonizs to resolve itself into love as into nothimz;, vet it can never 
 perish but will always endure. I would, however — says he'-' — call to 
 the reader's recollection that, where it was asserted by me that we are 
 one with God, it is to be understood that we are one with him in love, 
 not in nature and essence. For God's essence is uncreated, but ours 
 is created ; which makes an infinite difference. Hence, we may in- 
 deed be united one with the other, but never become one. And if our 
 own essence were annihilated, we could neither know, nor love, nor be 
 blessed." And again, in the remarkable passage -^ where he ascribes 
 the fall of the angels to their fixlling in love with their own nature, and 
 thinking they did not need the supernatural gifts of God, he adds : 
 " And yet still worse than all evil spirits are those h3^pocntical men 
 who despise God, and his gifts, and Holy Church and all her sacra- 
 ments, and Holy Scripture, and all exercises of virtue, and say they 
 lead a life exalted above every other kind, something quite transcend- 
 ent, and that they have sunk themselves into the same repose as they 
 had before they were created, and that they have no knowledge, no 
 love, no will, no craving, no exercises of virtue, but are rid of them 
 all. And because they would sin, and commit foul crimes without 
 compunction of conscience, they say besides, that in the day of judg- 
 ment good and evil spirits, godless and pious men will all be trans- 
 formed together into the simple essence of God ; and then all would in 
 this enjoy an essential blessedness, witbout knowledge or love of God ; 
 and then God would neither know nor love himself nor any creature." 
 Furthermore, we should here give prominent place to that profoundly 
 thoughtful, truthful description of a one-sided intellectualized mysticism, 
 divorced of all vitality of feeling, where he says : 4 " The most danger- 
 ous temptation besets those who, without exercise of the virtues, find 
 within themselves, by imageless, naked intelligence, the essential being 
 of their souls, and possess the same in a certain naked repose of their 
 spirit and their nature. These sink into a certain empty and blind re- 
 pose of their essence ; they do not concern themselves in the least 
 about performing good works and exercises, external or internal ; and 
 all internal acts, as Milling, knowing, loving, longing, and all active 
 tendency to God they despise and spurn. If these had but striven 
 for one short hour of their life, with pure love and a holy dispo- 
 sition after God", and had a taste of the true virtues, they could never 
 have fallen into this blindness and into this unbelief. Assuredly, our 
 Lord and Saviour Christ himself, all classes of the blessed spirits, and 
 
 ^ Il)i(l. pag. 34. * De quixtuor subtilib. tcntationib.. pag. 
 
 « Ihid. 196 (ed. 1609. pag. 360). 
 
 ' Ibid. pag. 27. 
 
FRIENDS OF GOD IN GERMANY. 399 
 
 holy men, av III, tli rough all eternity, act, love, long, thank, praise, have 
 ■will and consciousness ; nor can they, without these acts, be blessed. 
 God himself, if he did not act, would not be God, and could not be 
 blessed. Grievously therefore do they err, these poor men, who are 
 to^ be mourned over with many tears, who slumber and sink down in 
 
 this mistaken repose of their souls TIcnce comes a perverted 
 
 freedom. They are simple people, without all practice of the virtues, 
 and who remain at a very far rcimove from any true mortification of 
 their nature. Or if they have sought long and much to exercise 
 themselves in great penitence, still they have done it without love and 
 without a pure disposition towards God." Perhaps we may infer from 
 these last words, that many who had taken great pains in the practice 
 of self-mortification, afterwards fell away into this mystic bent of 
 apathy. " It is the manner of this people — saj^s he — to sit quiet 
 in one spot, with no sort of occupation, retiring into themselves with 
 an idle sensuousness, stript bare of all images. And because they are 
 without the practice of the virtues, and without love through union 
 with God, hence they do not penetrate into themselves, but reposing 
 in their own essence, convert this into their god or idol. Meanwhile" 
 they fancy themselves one with God." " Thus we are — says he 
 in another place^ — without any mediation, in a way exalted above 
 all the virtues, united with God, where, in the highest point of our cre- 
 ated essence, we bear his image within us ; still, we ever continue to 
 be like him, and united Avith him in ourselves, through his grace and 
 by our virtuous life." He says^ — " We may find "a certain race of 
 hypocrites. They would be regarded as persons standing in a passive 
 relation to God ; they w^ould be inactive, and merely certain instru- 
 ments of God. They affirm, therefore, that they stand only in a 
 passive relation, without any action of their own ; and those works 
 which God produces in them as his blind instruments, are more excel- 
 lent and possessed of greater merit than the works of other men. 
 They affirm that they are incapable of committing sin, because God 
 alone works all things in them, and only what God wills and nothing 
 else is done by them. They imagine that every thing to which they 
 feel inwardly impelled, whether it be in agreement with virtue or op- 
 posed to it, proceeds from the motions of the Holy Spirit." From 
 this class Ruysbroch distinguishes another as a still worse one, who 
 pushed this pantheistic quietism to such an extreme as to believe 
 themselves not only raised by it above all religious rites, all the ordi- 
 nances of the church, all obedience to the church, in their own im- 
 agined perfection, their denudation from all creaturely properties and 
 their absorption into God, but also empowered by it to annul all dis- 
 tinctions of right and Avrong, and justify every species of irregularity, 
 provided no disturbance were offered to the repose of the spirit. We 
 are reminded by all this of similar phenomena, which have occurred 
 among many Gnostic sects and in ancient India. He tells us first in 
 
 ' Lib. de septem amoris gradib., pag. 2 Dq ornatu spirital. nuptiar., pajr. 275. 
 
 224. r 1 r o 
 
400 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 *. 
 
 ■what respects they agreed with those before mentioneti : ''" They sit still 
 and idle, without any exertion of virtue or cood -works ; and this to 
 such extent as that thev will neither praise God, nor thank him ; nor 
 know, will, or love him, nor pray to him or lonp; after him. They im- 
 agine that they already possess everything which they could ])ray for; 
 and that they are already poor in sjiirit, as they are witliout will of 
 their own, and have renounced everything, and live Avithout any 
 choice or purpose of their own. They imagine they are rid of every- 
 thing and superior to everything. They have already attained to all 
 for wliich the various institutions and rites of the church have been 
 founded. As they themselves pretend, no being, not even God. can 
 give anything to them, or take aught from them. For according to 
 their own judgment they are beyond all exercises, all rites of worship, 
 and all the virtues, and have attained to a certain pure repose, where 
 thev are free from all the virtues. And thev sav, that to be thus free in 
 repose from the virtues, requires greater pains and exertions than 
 to attain to the virtues themselves. For this reason they would enjoy 
 freedom, obey nobody, neither pope, nor bishops, nor prelates. And 
 though they put on outwardly the mask of a certain obedience, yet 
 inwardly they are subject to no one, neither in will nor in action. For 
 from all which Holy Church does and observes, from all this they hold 
 themselves exempted, and will have nothing to do witli it. And this 
 is their opinion — so long as a man takes pains to acquire virtues, and 
 seeks to fulfil the will of God, he is not perfect ; since he is still seek- 
 ing to acquire virtues, and has learnt nothing as yet of this his 
 spiritual poverty. And they consider themselves exalted above all 
 the orders of the world of spirits and all the hosts of the saints, 
 and every reward which could possibly be merited ; and, therefore, 
 they suppose that they can merit nothing more, they can make no 
 farther progress in virtue, nor commit any more sins, since they are 
 without will of their own, and have surrendered their spirits to God in 
 repose, and hence have so become one with God as to be altogether 
 nothing in themselves. Therefore, they affirm, every thing is allowa- 
 ble to them which their bodies mav lust after, since reduced back to 
 the state of innocence they have no law prescribed to them. There- 
 fore, when their corporeal nature lusts after anything, whatever it may 
 be, and they feel that the tranijuillity of their spirits is disturbed by 
 the non-gratification of this desire they give up to their nature. 
 Therefore they ffive themselves no concern about observing: fasts or 
 festivals, except when, for men's sake, they do otherwise. For in all 
 thiuiTS they live without conscience, holding that there is nothinar which 
 
 O .• '1—1 o 
 
 is not permitted them." "I hope — says he — that we shall find but 
 few of this sort of men ; but they, whoever they are, that belong to 
 their number, are the worst of men ; and seldom, if ever, do they 
 come to their senses ; in the mean time, evil spirits get possession of 
 them." He says, that they were hard to be reached by arguments. 
 And Tauler, after pointing out how the contemplative life should pass 
 over into the active — both being in essence one — contends against 
 these advocates of a one-sided, contemplative bent. " There are, 
 
FRIENDS OF GOD IX GERMANY. RUYSBROCII. 401 
 
 again — says lie ^ — certain men who set value only on contemplation, 
 and set no value on reality, and say that they need not exercise, need 
 not virtue ; they have passed beyond it." And he holds up to 
 such the words of Christ respecting the seed cast into good ground, 
 which brought forth a hundred fold ; and Matth. o : 10. 
 
 Having thus explained this general opposition of the ground-tend- 
 encies of the so-called Friends of God, we will proceed to enter more 
 at large into the characteristics of the above-mentioned representa- 
 tives of the more pure and sober bent. The first to be noticed here 
 is John Iiuyshrocli of Brussels, who being, as we have seen from his 
 writings, a zealous opponent of that fanatical, pantheistic bent, had 
 already, before retiring from the world, great trials to endure from the 
 opposition of a wife belonging to the sect of the free spirit. She was 
 one of those who labored to disseminate their doctrines by the circula- 
 tion of mystic writings in the vulgar language, and had formed around 
 her a large party, whose hatred Ruysbroch incurred by the zeal with 
 which he contended against this fanatical bent, so connected with sen- 
 sual extravagancies. Ruysbroch was much sought after by many be- 
 longing to districts on the Rhine, Strasburg, Basel, and France, and 
 consulted for spiritual advice. 
 
 The writings of Ruysbroch evince — and the same thing is apparent 
 also from the story of his life — that his contemplative habits did not 
 hinder him from coming frequently into contact with his contempo- 
 raries. We find, therefore, that he was possessed of a profound 
 knowledge of the religious condition of his contemporaries ; he under- 
 stood the dangers that threatened to come in from this source, and 
 sought to guard against them. Though the externalization of the re- 
 ligious element and superstition were, in this period, the chief disturb- 
 ers of the religious spirit, yet Ruysbroch knew how to detect the 
 infidehty, also, that went along with them. This was, indeed, at first, 
 wrapt up and concealed under the extravagances of that mysticism, 
 that false inwardness and passivity, which Ruysbroch, as we have 
 seen, so vigorously contended against ; but we find hints in his wri- 
 tings, that, independent of this, thp prevailing worldliness of spirit 
 that cramped every movement of the higher life, had called forth a 
 decided infidelity, which may have been but confirmed the more by 
 the antagonism of the prevaiHng superstition. We know not but we 
 should be thinking of some such root, rather than the aberrations of 
 mysticism, when Ruysbroch, contending against such as denied every 
 thing supernatural, says : 2 " They who lie without shame under mor- 
 tal sins, care neither about God nor his grace, but esteem the virtues 
 as nothing, spiritual life as hypocrisy or deception, and listen with dis- 
 gust to all that is said about God or the virtues ; convinced that there 
 is no God, and no heaven or hell. Hence it is that they want to know 
 about nothing but what strikes the senses : " and when he speaks of 
 those bad Christians,^ who blaspheme Christ, and set at naught his sa- 
 
 * Bas. ed. fol. 15 b ; Fr. ed. I, p. 123. ' Specul. aetern. salut. pag. 27. 
 
 ' De calculo, pag. 283. 
 
 34* 
 
402 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRINE. 
 
 craments. We meet with expressions in his writings which, rent from 
 their connection with his general drift and scope, separated from those 
 passages where, as we have seen, he so empliatically contends against 
 pantlieism, might be misconstrued as an inclination to that error ; as 
 ■where he savs : ^ " God dwells after the like true manner, as to his es- 
 sence, in the wicked and the good, for he is the creator and preserver 
 of all beings, and nearer and more within them than they are to theni- 
 selves : he is the essence of their essence." So when he describes it 
 as the highest position to be reached in time or eternity ; " when we 
 have the feeling and inward consciousness beyond all knowledge and sci- 
 ence, and of a certain infinite, fathomless unknown; when we are dead 
 to, and rise above all the names which we give to God or to creatures, 
 or pass bevond them into something eternal, transcendent, which is 
 incapable of being designated by any name, and lose ourselves there- 
 in ; and when above all the exercises of virtue in us, we perceive and 
 experience a certain eternal repose, wherein there is no activity ; and 
 above all blessed spirits, an infinite and immeasurable bliss, in which 
 ■we are all one, and this unity itself, so far as it is possible to the crea- 
 ture, is the same that blessedness is in itselF; and when, finally, we 
 see all blessed spirits merged, blended, and lost in that essence which 
 is higher than all substance." 2 But what preserved Ruysbroch, who, 
 as we may see from the language above cited, in striving to pass be- 
 yond the limits of temporal consciousness and to anticipate the intu- 
 itions of the life eternal, might so easily have lost himself in those 
 abysses, what preserved such a man from the pantheistic error, was 
 the power of the moral element within him, it was that which Christ 
 %vas to him, the connection of his christian consciousness with his con- 
 sciousness of God, his way of knowing God in Christ, his way of 
 clinging to God revealed and to his word, and his profound recognition 
 of this°essence of pei-sonality ; his way of connecting his faith in a 
 personal supra-mundane God with the consciousness of his own per- 
 sonality. The characteristic thing in that mystic pantheism is in fact 
 nothing more nor less than will, exalting itself above Christ, and the 
 want ot' a strong moral sense. We may notice, therefore, what Ruys- 
 broch savs on this point : 3 " We cannot redeem ourselves ; but if with 
 all the capalnlities we have we follow after Christ, then our acts are 
 united with Jik acts, and become enobled by his grace. Therefore has 
 Christ redeemed us by his ou'?i acts and not by ours, and by his own 
 merits has he made us free. But if we would possess and feel this 
 freedom, then must Jus spirit kindle our spirits to love, and plunge us 
 in the abyss of his love and most free goodness, where our spirits are 
 baptized and endued with freedom, and united with his spirit, and that 
 which constitutes our will dies to itself, and is absorbed in his will, so 
 that we would will nothing but what God wills ; for God's will has be- 
 come our will — which is the root of true love. Accordingly, he 
 says : * " Christ is our mirror and our rule, the rule for the right di- 
 
 ^ De praccip. quibusd. virtut., p. 179. ' Specul. actcrn. salut, pag. 14. 
 
 * De sept. amor, grad., pag. 226. ■* Ibid. pag. 32. 
 
FRIENDS OF GOD IN GERMANY. RUYSBROCH. 403 
 
 rc'ct'lon of our -whole life. His humanity is the li;^ht of the divine 
 glory whereby heaven and earth are enli;^htcned, and will be to all 
 eternity." '' Though God — says he ' — has withdrawn and hidden him- 
 self from thy view, yet thou art by no means hidden from him. For he 
 lives in thee and has left thee his mirror and his image, the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, his Son, that thou mightest carry him in thy hands, before 
 
 thine eyes and in thy heart The kingdom of heaven is Jesus 
 
 Christ himself, who by his grace lives in us ; and the kingdom of 
 heaven suffereth violence, arid, by the power of Christ who lives in us 
 and fid its with us, we take it bv force." ^ jje understands how to 
 seize the divine nature and the human nature of Christ in their intimate 
 connection. " Because — says he ^ — Christ was in respect of that which 
 is highest in him ever of the same will with the Father, though his 
 nature was sensible to sorrow and anguish, yet he showed obedience, and 
 having overcome the will of the sensuous part, he said to the Father, 
 ' Not my will, but thine, be done.' " AVe have already observed how 
 Ruysbroch contended against that one-sided contemplative bent. And 
 though he,'* too, gave great prominence to the contemplative life of the 
 spirit, yet he ever regarded love as the highest, and in this he finds 
 the union of the contemplative and the practical habit. " If one — 
 says he — should soar to a height of contemplation equal to any which 
 Peter or Paul or any other of the apostles ever reached, but should be 
 informed that some poor man stood in need of a warm broth, or of any 
 other service, it would be far better that he should for the moment 
 awake out of the repose of that contemplation and bestow aid on that 
 poor man in true charity, than that he should surrender himself to the 
 sweetness of his present contemplation ; for God's commandments are 
 not to be neglected for the sake of any exercise, however great it 
 may be. Whoever — says he in another placed — would give himself 
 up solely to contemplation, and neglect his neighbor in distress, has 
 never attained to true intercourse with himself and the contemplative 
 life, but is miserably deceived m his whole mode of life. And against 
 such people it behooves us to be much on our guard." He atfirms 
 that for the sake of christian perfection, one need not retire into soli- 
 tude or to holy places. A man truly just, will be so in all places and 
 with all men ; and the same holds true of the unjust. But he is to be 
 called a just man, who, after a true manner, perceives God, and this 
 in all places, even in the public ways, and with all mortals no otherwise 
 than in the church, or in his chamber, or in whatever other place he 
 may have shut himself up." And he cites in illustration the words 
 of Christ to the Samaritan woman. (John 4 : 21) " Men — says 
 he 6 — ought not to look so much at what they do, as at what they are. 
 For if they are good at bottom, their deeds will easily be good also. 
 Many place holiness in action ; but this is not best ; since holiness is, 
 if 1 may so express it, to be placed in helng. For however holy our 
 
 * Ibid. pag. 13. * De praecip. quibusd. virtut., pag. 181. 
 
 ' Ibid. pag. 15. * Specul. aetem. salut., pag. 25 et 26. 
 
 ^ Ibid. pag. 14. ^ De praecip. quibusd. virtut. pag. 176. 
 
404 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTPJXE. 
 
 ■works may be, they do not, as works, make us holy ; but so far as we 
 are holy ourselves, and our foundation is a holy one, so far we make 
 our works, also, holy ; and whether it be eating or drinking, sleeping, 
 waking, praying, conversing, or fisting, so far as it is done from 
 greater love to God and to the endless glory of God, so far is it also 
 something good. For the greater the love with which a man devotes 
 himself to God, the holier is his foundation." i Ruysbroch was op- 
 posed also to the externality of the church tendency manifested in 
 penance and such matters, as a one-sided, subjective bent. He says: 2 
 *' Tliougli many frequent the choir, day and night, read a great deal, 
 sing, multiply words in prayer, and perform the like good works, yet 
 these are valueless both to themselves and before God ; because, with 
 thoughts dissi{)ated on outward objects, they ' walk after the flesh and 
 not after the s[)irit." " Outward poverty — says he ^ — separated from 
 the internal exercises and virtues, cannot find this way to God. If, on 
 the other hand, one makes a wise and conscientious use of riches, if 
 for the glory of God he liberally distributes them to the poor, he may 
 find this way, which remains an unknown one to hypocrites who are 
 poor against their will." " We may meet with many who lead a strict and 
 austere life, and give themselves up to astonishing acts of penance, but 
 their only end is to gain a great reputation for sanctity and a great 
 reward. For natural love turns back upon itself, and longs after honor 
 in this Ufe, and a large reward in the next." 4 Again — he says ^ 
 — " he who busies himself more with those exercises which take up 
 the whole heart and soul, and bestows more attention on the multi- 
 plicity of works, than on their essence and end, and clings to his ex- 
 ercises, to sacraments, symbols, and outward usages, more than to the 
 truth si'aiified bv them, he continues to be an outward man, swallowed 
 up in mere doing ; but the same man in his ^^ood works, if they are 
 united with a simple temper, will obtain eternal life." " Every good 
 work — says he 6 — however trifling, if done with love and a simple dis- 
 position, out of respect to God, obtains likeness to God and eternal 
 life in him ; for a simple disposition brings the scattered powers of 
 the soul into unity, and places the spirit itself in union with God.'* 
 One thinir characterizing; the ethical element in Ruvsbroch, which se- 
 cured him against the danger of pantheism, is the prominent place he 
 gives to the will, which he describes as the main-spring, on which all 
 development of the higher life depends. " All virtue, and all good- 
 ness — says he 7 — depend on the will. He, therefore, wants notlimg, 
 who truly possesses a right will. If, then, thou longest to have hu- 
 mility, love, or any other of the virtues, thou hast but to will it in all 
 seriousness and with thy whole soul, and of a certainty thou hast it, 
 and none can deprive thee of it, be he God or man, if but thy will be 
 right and godlike." And in another place,8he says what could hardly 
 be acceptable to the advocates of the common view held by the 
 
 ' Il)i(l. pag. 17.3 * Ii>ifl. pac;. 267. 
 
 « l)e quat. subtil, tcntation. pag. 195. « IMd. pag. 266 (cd. 1609 pag. 486). 
 
 ' De sept. amor, grad., pag. 220. ' De praccip. quibusd. virtut., pag. 180. 
 
 * De ornatu spiritual, nuptiar, pag. 274. " Ibid. pag. 181. 
 
FRIENDS OF GOD IX GERMANY. 405 
 
 church : " If one should maintain that a perfect will, without works, 
 is worth as much as a good will, with works, at tlie same time, I should 
 not be disposed strenuously to dispute such an opinion." A good will 
 is born of the Holy Spirit itself; and, therefore, a good will is the 
 living and free instrument whereby God accom|)lishes what he wills. A 
 good will in man is tlie love shed abroad in him, through which he 
 honors God, and cherishes and exercises all the virtues. Our good 
 ■will is God's grace, and our supernatural life whereby we get the vic- 
 tory over all sins. A good will, united with the divine grace, makes us 
 free, lifts us above ourselves, and unites us with God in the contempla- 
 tive life. A good will, in its internal communion with God, is the 
 spirit crowned with the eternal life ; and when it is directed outwards, 
 it is lord of all external actions ; and the same is accordindv the 
 kingdom of God, where God reigns by his grace. It includes love, 
 and, lifted above itself, is blessed, united with God." ' Much spiritual ex- 
 perience and sober sense, are evinced in what Ruysbroch says, in 
 reproving that tendency to self-reflection and tacit repose in the feel- 
 ings, whereby many in these times were led astray — a tendency 
 noticed by chancellor Gerson, who, describing the dangers of the inner 
 life of the soul, in his times, says : ^ '^ The excessive hunting after and 
 brooding over feehngs has deceived many." Now, when, for various 
 reasons, such persons came to find the current of their religious feelings 
 dried up, and to experience a dearth in their inner life, they were easily 
 led to think themselves forsaken of God, and fell into despondency. He 
 says many things on this subject having an important bearing on the 
 religious life of his contemporaries. He speaks of people, " Who 
 strove after many special favors, had their particular prayers, and 
 requested this and that thing of God. Hence, they were often 
 deceived. God permitted the things they desired to be given them 
 by evil spirits ; while they, however, ascribed the answer to their 
 own holiness, and believed they deserved it all. Nor should vfQ 
 wonder at this, since they suffer under the distemper of pride, and 
 are neither touched nor enlightened by God. They cling therefore to 
 themselves ; a trifling comfort rejoices them beyond measure, because 
 they are not aware of their great deficiencies. They are bent on seek- 
 ing after spiritual enjoyments, which may well be called a spiritual de- 
 bauch, because it is an inordinate desire of natural love, which always 
 has prime regard to itself, and seeks its own advantage." ^ " The ef- 
 fects of love often seem of great importance, as triumphant joy, de- 
 votion, and the like ; but these are not always the more desirable and 
 better states of feeling, for they may exist without true love. Nature 
 is often wont to bestow such sweetness of temper, or by God's per- 
 mission, even the spirit of all evil may excite such feelings in a man. 
 Nor is he to be called a more holy man than others, who abounds in 
 such feelings. Hence, it is our duty to inquire whether such feelings 
 have been bestowed by God, and for what purpose. For such feelings, 
 
 * Specul. aetern. saint., pag. 29. ^ j)g oraatu spiritual, nuptiar., pag. 27-i. 
 
 ^ Fefcllit multos nimia sensimentorum 
 conquisitio. 
 
40G HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AXD DOCTRrXE. 
 
 God, in his love, is often wont to bestow, for the purpose of stimulating 
 the soul to aim at something higher and of keeping it in the right direc- 
 tion of life. But as he, on whom they are bestowed, makes progress in 
 true love, he gradually pays less regard to such sweetness of the feel- 
 in^'s. While lie maintains his fidelitv, however, in such times of re- 
 freshment, the Christian should still be watchful, and consider whether 
 it flows fnnn true love ; and even if it be clear that such is the case, 
 yet it is not for this reason the best thing, as will be evident if we re- 
 flect that such enjoyments must ever be regarded as of far less value 
 than any service, bodily or spiritual, which we can bestow on an- 
 other." J In respect to the consciousness of spiritual dearth, he 
 savs:'^ "If thou sometimes feelest within thee a certain stubborn- 
 ness of nature, a troubled heart and an oppressive burden ; if thou 
 feelest thyself deprived of all taste for spiritual things ; if thou ap- 
 pearest to thyself deserted of God, poor, and destitute of all comfort ; 
 if thou supposest thyself suffering under a disgust of all external and 
 internal exercises, and feelest thyself depressed by such a load, as if 
 thou must sink to the earth ; be not for all this perplexed in thy soul, 
 but leave thyself in the hands of the Lord, and let it only be thy 
 prayer that God's will may be done, and that all should be subservient 
 to his glory. Believe me, the dark cloud will soon be dissipated, and 
 the radiance of the beaming sun of our Lord Jesus Christ will be 
 poured over thee with a more excellent comfort and a more excellent 
 grace than thou hast ever felt before ; and this on account of thy self- 
 renunciation and thy humble resignation under all the load laid upon 
 thee." Accordingly, he looks upon all such sufferings of the soul as 
 an exercise of self-denial, a training to a total surrendry of the heart 
 to God, with the renunciation of self and of all creatures ; and for 
 consolation and example he adverts to the state of soul in Christ, 
 when he uttered those words on the cross, ' My God, why hast thou 
 forsaken me,' which such persons doubtless know how to understand 
 better than all others. " In order — says he^ — that we may not only 
 bear such things with equanimity from men, but also patiently suffer 
 the rod of our Lord himself, when he withdraws the comfort of his 
 presence, removing so far from us, that it seems as if a wall separated 
 between Him and us ; and if we come in our distress for comfort and 
 hclj', placing himself towards us as if he shut his eyes upon us and 
 would neitlier see nor hear us, leaving us to struggle alone with our 
 sufferings and sorrows as he himself, too, was forsaken of his Father ; 
 then, ill the miilst of all this we must fly to his deity as our refuge, 
 that so, rem-iining unshaken amid all our depression, we may seek our 
 consolation in no mortal creature or thing, nor anywhere but in that 
 word which Christ himself uttered, ' Thy will be done,' which words 
 are the most agreeable of all to God ; and he who can express this 
 from the deep meaning of his heart, can never be disturbed or fall into 
 any great depression ; but he will experience in his very resignation a 
 
 ' De praocip. quihusd. virtut.. pag. 181. ' De praecip. quibusd. virtut., pag 175. 
 * iSpccul. at'tcm. salut., pag. 13. 
 
FRIENDS OF GOD IN GERMANY. 407 
 
 peculiar peace, because God is the end of the self-denial." In re.^ard 
 to tempting thoughts, he says : ^ "If in thy praying, or thy spiritual 
 exercises strange thoughts or images enter thy mind, whatever they 
 may be, if they be not to the purpose before thee, be not disturbed by 
 them, but turn away, at once, with the whole bent of thy mind and 
 love, to God. For although the hellish foe shows thee thy wares, still 
 they will not stay by thee if thou art not inclined to them in thy af- 
 fections. Therefore, if thou wouldst easily overcome all things, seek 
 to keep thy soul ever directed upward and turned inward." 
 
 John Tauler was born in Strasburg, in the year 1290 ; in the year 
 1308 he entered the Dominican order. It is worthy of remark that 
 he expresses himself somewhat doubtful whether it belongs to the true 
 following after Christ to hve by the alms of others instead of laboring 
 for one's self. He says in a sermon :^ " Had I known, when I was 
 my father's son, what I now know, I would have lived upon his labor 
 and not upon alms." He studied at Paris ; and so we find him citing 
 -what was taught in the schools. 3 But, as is evident from what has 
 been earlier said, the theology that is not to be learned from books was 
 esteemed by him as of much higher value. We have already remarked 
 how, in the time of the papal interdict, and of the ravages of the black 
 death, he continued fearlessly to labor in promoting the spiritual good 
 of the people. He preached at Cologne and in the different cities on 
 the Rhine, and died in the year 1361. Tauler, as well as Ruysbroch, 
 contended against the prevailing tendency to the external in religion. 
 He says : ^ " God gave all things that they might be a way to him- 
 self, and He only should be the end. Do you dream that it is a jest ? 
 Nay, verily. Your station makes you neither blessed nor holy. Neither 
 my cowl, nor my bald head, nor my convent, nor my holy society, nor 
 any of these things makes me holy." Accordingly he declaims against 
 the various self-mortifications and voluntarily imposed exercises of pen- 
 ance, by which men destroyed their minds and bodies instead of mak- 
 ing any real progress in sanctification. Thus he says ; " Some men 
 are not content with the myrrh which God gives them, they would load 
 their stomachs with still more, and give themselves the head-ache and 
 sick fancies, and have suffered long and much, and fail to do things 
 rightly, and little grace comes to them from it all, when they build on 
 their own plan, whether in penance or abstinence, or in prayer or devo- 
 tion." 5 In the case of prayer, he makes the inward disposition the 
 main thing. Praying by memory, he says, is profitable only so far 
 as it stirs up the man to this noble (internal) devotion ; and then the 
 noble incense bursts forth ; and when that flows out, let the prayer of 
 the lips boldly proceed." 6 He says again, that by love, the supreme 
 virtue, all vows are paid ; since the fulfilling of all which those vows 
 proposed is contained in love. Now if a man has made many vows, 
 to pray, to fast, to make pilgrimages and the like, he is exempt and 
 
 > Specul. aetern. salut., pag. 12. * Sermons, Bas. ed. fol. 146 a: Fr. ed. 
 
 2 Bas. ed. fol. 120 b; Fr. ed. II, p. 419. Ill, p. 120. 
 
 3 See above, page 384. & Bas. cd. fol. 8 a ; Fr. ed. I, p. 141. 
 
 « Bas. ed. fol. 8 b ; Fr. ed. 
 
408 HISTORY or THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 free from all these, ^vhen he enters into an order ; as soon as he Is 
 in the order, he is bound to all the virtues and to God. llightly there- 
 fore do I also say here, that to however many things a man may 
 have bound himself to God, if he comes into real true love, he is free 
 from them all, so long as true sincerity'- of heart is in him." ^ Speakmg 
 of those Avho would be righteous by outward works, he says : " They 
 abide in this, that they do great works, such as fasting, much watching, 
 and praying ; yet do not clearly see their foundation. They find their 
 interest and themselves in sensual enjoyment, favor and disfavor. And 
 lience are engendered unjust and incorrect judgments ; and then many 
 faihngs and imperfections, such as pride, outward or inward, bitterness 
 or self- will, (piarrelsomeness, and many faults of the like kind." 2 He 
 speaks against those who referred morality to the relations of this world, 
 excluding the higher aspirations after that which is above the world, 
 the craving that passes beyond things earthly to lay hold on eternal life. 
 " These men — says he 3 — stray away into the rational exercise of the 
 virtues, and thus find such pleasure and delight in this, that they are 
 kept at a distance from the truth which is nearest and highest, stop- 
 ping short at the present pleasure, histead of seeking after the eternal 
 God through all pleasure." He reprimands those who placed their de- 
 pendence on saints or angels, instead of reposing their whole trust in 
 God. He says : * " There are some spiritual men, who are not content 
 to be without comfort. For rather than to be simply and truly without 
 comfort, and found empty and naked, they would resort to heavenly 
 creatures, saints and angels, and entertain these in their minds with a 
 spiritual pleasure, and set these before them for a comfort. As, for 
 example, this saint is loved by me above other saints, or this angel 
 above other angels. And then if any one objects to this, declaring that 
 it is an unpermitted thing, that it should not be done, they have small 
 pleasure in this, perhaps they are displeased ; and this is at once a 
 ■wrong, and a great hindrance to thee in thy business with God." 
 We have seen how Tauler regarded the pious observance of all out- 
 ward rites prescribed by the church as a preparatory school for the 
 highest stage of spirituality, of the contemplative religious life ; how 
 therefore these Friends of God were opposed to those who outwardly 
 and arbitrarily cast off all external observances. The casting aside of 
 these ordinances should not be a purposed thing ; it should be a natu- 
 ral falling off of them ; as if the internal development of the religious 
 life had progressed to such a point, that the outward rites which were 
 no longer needed as supjwrts, must fall away of themselves. xVnd here 
 •we may observe the difference between the men of this bent and the 
 violent reformers, those fanatical Beghards, and the Brethren of the 
 Free Spirit. But we may remark also how easily the transition might 
 be made from these principles to that application of them. We find 
 the following passage in Tauler,^ which begins with a beautiful com- 
 
 1 Bas. cd. fol. 17 a. [This sermon ap- ■• Bas. ed. fol. 20 a; Fr. ed. I, p. 194. 
 pears to be wanting' in the Fr. edition.] * Baa. ed. fol. 21 b; Fr. ed. I, p. 199. 
 
 •^ Bas. cd. fol. 19 b J Fr. ed. I. p. 192. 
 ' The same. 
 
FRIENDS OF GOD IX GERMANY. TAULER. 409 
 
 parison : '^' We gladly break off and strip away the leaves, to let the 
 sun pour his rays, without hindrance, upon these young grapes. So all 
 helps that become hindrances fall away from the Christian — images 
 of saints, knowledge, exercises, and prayer, and all means. The man 
 sliould not cast these aside, however, but wait till they fall off themselves, 
 through divine grace ; that is, when the man is trained up to a higher 
 stage, beyond all his understanding." Tauler, moreover, opposes the one- 
 sided contemplative bent, Avhich despised the practical, lie requires the 
 union and mutual interpenetration of the two elements, lie understood 
 the dangers of those who, without matured experience, would betake 
 themselves to the contemplative life alone. He looks upon the practi- 
 cal life as a needful probation ; and says in this regard of the young 
 people : " One should not lay down to repose in the noble country of 
 contemplation. He may perhaps pass in there for a while, but he 
 should fly back again, as long as he is not fully mature, and is still 
 young and unpractised and imperfect." ' Moreover, he speaks against 
 • the tendency of wanting to luxuriate continually in sweet feelings, and 
 says : 2 "It is no great distress if a man is not always jubilant and in 
 sweet enjoyment ; for all this is but a chance gift of God, that is, when the 
 essential thing of a devout temper abides in the man." He speaks of 
 those who, when times of stumbling followed after pleasant enjoyments, 
 knew not upon what to fix and steady themselves. " Their sweet emotions 
 — says he ^ — have turned out a weak foundation on which they have 
 been trusting, instead of trusting truly inGod,solery and alone, in love and 
 suffering." This luxuriating in sweet feelings was, according to him, 
 the evil germ from which the tendency of those enthusiastic Friends of 
 God, who had sunk down into pantheistic self-deification, had evolved 
 itself, and he remarks : ^ " There are some who so rest in the sweet- 
 ness of enjoyment as to fall into an improper freedom." He defines it 
 as a sinking back of nature into itself, finds in it therefore an intermixture 
 of the natural and divine. It appears to him a self-constituted, artifi- 
 cial state of being, which he compares to the employment of a multi- 
 phcity of remedies, that hinder nature in her own healthy and sponta- 
 neous reactions, and he observes : " In these pleasant moods and states 
 nature bends back upon herself with agility, and quietly a^vaits the 
 result of that to which the man is, above all things, inclined, and aban- 
 dons herself to security ; and just that happens which I have heard 
 from physicians, that it is not a good thing for men to use many drugs,^ 
 for, when nature finds herself helped, she trusts to that and sits down 
 and rests, and she thinks she has the right help, and works not so dili- 
 gently as she otherwise does. But when she is uncertain of all help, 
 she contrives, and works, and helps herself." He warns against turning 
 the thoughts inward too much on one's self, against despondency under 
 temptations, which ought to be regarded as a means designed for the 
 purification of the soul. He says : ^ " Have good courage, then, and 
 
 * Bas. ed. fol. 7 a; Fr. ed. I, p. 135. * (The Bas. ed. reads : das sy vil aert- 
 
 * Bas. ed. fol. 134 a; Fr. ed. Ill, p. 218. zet hetten, which doubtless signities drugs. 
 =* lias. ed. fol. 46 a; Fr. ed. II, o. 113. Ed. 
 
 *■ Bas. ed. fol. 48 a; Fr. ed. II, p. 121. « Bas. ed fol. 134 a; Fr. ed. Ill, p. 217. 
 
 35 
 
410 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 fce joyful and not sorrowful nor melanclioly, though wicked, impure 
 thoughts may sometimes intrude into your minds ; let them he as 
 wicked as they may, pay no attention to them. For if they come up 
 contrary to thy thoughts and wishes, so let them fall out again. And 
 should this happen to thee, most of all in prayer and in thy approaches 
 to God, let them alone in the name of God, and suffer this conflict and 
 these impure suggestions right cheerfully and humbly and quietly by 
 the will of God." So in the times of spiritual dearth, when the sensi- 
 ble presence of God is wanting, and the soul feels itself forsaken by 
 Him, he warns men not to despair, but to recognize in this an appoint- 
 ment of Trovidence designed for the saving good of man, for the promo- 
 tion of the divine life. '' We must — says he i— intend and seek God 
 by himself. And this foretaste of the great true wedding many people 
 wWd fain have, and complain that it cannot be. And if they experi- 
 ence no wedding on the deep ground of their being, when they pray or 
 perform other exercises, and find not God's presence, it vexes them ; 
 and this they do less, or less willingly, and say they have no experience of 
 God. Therefore they grow weary of their pains-taking and praying. This 
 a man should never do. We should never do a duty the less on such ac- 
 count ; for God was present there, but we perceived him not. Yet he 
 went secretly to the wedding. Where God is, there in truth is the wed- 
 ding. And"^ he cannot be away from it ; where a man simply thinks 
 of Him and seeks Him alone, there God must of necessity be, either 
 sensibly or in a hidden manner." He adduces in illustration the case 
 of the apostles. They must be deprived of visible intercourse with the 
 Saviour ; meantime they must have believed they were forsaken ; but 
 it was tliat they might be prepared for the invisible communion with the 
 Saviour, and for the receiving of the Holy Ghost. " Children — he 
 savs^ — as to this matter, it is seriously to be considered by us, and we 
 n^ust understand that, to the beloved disciples of God and his beloved 
 friends, the Holy Ghost could not be given till Jesus Christ had first 
 gone away from them. Not at all different then is coldness, want of 
 comfort, ineptitude, so that we feel heavy and slow to every good work, 
 and cold and dark ; for thus has Christ departed from us. If all men 
 would see into this, and make it profitable and fruitful to themselves, it 
 were a useful, noble, blessed, divine thing." In another place he says, 
 after citing the words of Christ, John 10: 7, " The holy disciples were 
 then possessed, within and without, with the presence of our Lord Je- 
 sus Christ, and he so filled up every corner of their being, heart, soul, 
 sense, and powers of body and mind, that the possession must be out, or 
 must be away. If they were to come to the true, spiritual, inward com- 
 fort, this possession must needs be cut away from them, however sour 
 and bitter it might be to them ; they would otherwise have to abide at 
 the lowest stage, and in the senses." 3 Accordingly he speaks of the 
 various leadings of Providence connected with the internal develop- 
 ment of the soul, to which men ought simply to resign themselves, in- 
 
 ' Bas. ed. fol. 31 a ; Fr. ed. I, p. 266. ' Bas. ed. fol. 48 b ; Fr. ed. II, p. 122. 
 
 « Bas ed. fol. 36 a; Fr. ed. II, p. 69. 
 
FRIENDS OF GOD IX GERMANY. SUSO. 411 
 
 stead of choosing their own way. lie says : ' " God comes with ter- 
 rible conflicts, and in wonderful events, and singular ways, which none 
 can understand but he who experiences them. Men therefore have re- 
 markable, mysterious sufferings among them, diverse forms of the bit- 
 ter drug, so that they are at a loss which way to turn ; but God knows 
 well what he means by it all." He gives prominence to trust in Christ 
 as the means of obtaining victory over all temptations, and says : 2 
 " When he (the devout man) cannot overcome the dogs he contends 
 with, nor get rid of them, he should run in great haste to the tree of 
 the cross, and of the passion of our dear Lord Jesus Christ ; there 
 alone he may cleave asunder the heads of the dogs that assault him ; 
 that is, he there obtains the victory in all his conflicts, and is entirely 
 delivered and rid of them." 
 
 The third individual whose character deserves to be portrayed with 
 some minuteness, was Henry Suso of Suabia, a Dominican. lie was 
 born in the year 1300 and died in 1365. He was the author of various 
 writings, composed in the form of dialogues and in other forms, in the 
 German language, and afterwards translated into Latin, in which writ- 
 ings also we may discern the religious bent of this class of the Friends 
 of God. He is no less remarkable than Tauler for giving prominence 
 to the mediation of Christ as necessary to the attaining to true commu- 
 nion with God, and was thus distinguished from those pantheistic mys- 
 tics who, without any mediation, were for sinking directly into the 
 depths of the divine essence. Thus he represents Christ as sayuig : 
 " No man may ascend to the divine heights nor have any sweet fore- 
 taste of bliss, except he be first drawn by the image of my human low- 
 liness and sorrow. The higher a man climbs without passing through 
 my humanity, the lower he falls. My humanity is the way he should 
 take, my sufferings the door through which he should press." 3 The 
 practical following after Christ was considered of more value by him 
 than all transitory excitement of feeling. He makes Christ say : '' No 
 man better shows forth how near my suffering comes to him, than he 
 who bears it with me in the exhibition of good works. Dearer to me 
 is an empty heart, regardless of earthly loves, and constantly diligent 
 in pursuing the next duty after working out the example of my suffer- 
 ings, than if thou wert continually complaining to me, and honoring my 
 sorrow with as many tears of grief as ever drops of rain fell from the 
 skies ; for that thou mightest follow me was the end for which I suf- 
 fered the bitter death : though thy tears also are well-pleasing and 
 acceptable." Patience in suffering seemed to him of more value than 
 miracles, as he says : 4 " Never was there so much gazing at a knight 
 who has come off well at the tournament, as there is gazing of all the 
 heavenly host at a man who comes off well in suffering. All the saints 
 stand sureties for a suffering man ; for they have already experienced 
 it before, and cry out with common mouth, that it is no poison, but a 
 
 « Bas. ed. fol. 8 a; Fr. ed. I, p. 141. and "Writings. Regensburg, 1829, p. 249, 
 
 * Bas. ed. fol. 28 b; Fr. ed. I, p. 161. (2d ed. 1837, p. 181). 
 
 » In his " Little book of Eternal Wis- . ■* The same, p. 253, (2d ed., p. 184). 
 dom." Comp. Diepenbrock: Suso's Life 
 
412 HISTORY OF THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 wholesome drink. Patience in suffering is greater than callin.2; the dead 
 to life, or other miraculous signs ; it is the narrow way which opens 
 richly onward to tiie gate of heaven." 
 
 Among the religious appearances which grew out of these times of 
 distress and of excitement in Germany, and extended into the fifteenth 
 century, belong too the processions of the Scourgers or Flagellants. 
 It was first in Italy, in the thirteenth century, that, amid the con- 
 tests carried on with the wildest extravagance of passion between the 
 party friendly to the pope, and the party who went with the emperor, 
 — the Guelphs and Ghibellines, strong feelings of remorse followed 
 suddenly after the tumult of these passionate contests. Vast bodies of 
 men, girded with ropes, marched in procession, with songs and prayer, 
 through the cities and from one city to another, calling on the people 
 to repent. All hostilities ceased. The momentary impression pro- 
 duced by these singular processions was powerful, though it did not 
 last long. Such processions spread from Italy to other countries. In 
 Germany in particular, the impression produced by the desolating rav- 
 ages of the black death contributed to call forth such demonstrations ; 
 though even here, a lasting work of repentance by no means followed, 
 m the case of most ; but good men were forced to complain that ava- 
 rice and every sort of selfish vice afterwards prevailed to a greater 
 extent than ever.i Large bodies of men marched through Flanders, 
 France, Germany, singing hymns and scourging themselves till the 
 blood flowed freely. And as the civil mamstrates and ecclesiastical 
 authorities now found it necessary to interfere on account of the dan- 
 ger to civil and ecclesiastical order, and on account of the violation of 
 public decency connected with the rapid spread of this fanatical ten- 
 dency. Pope Clement VI. for example forbidding these processions 
 on penalty of the ban, it was necessarily driven (since those who were 
 seized with this fanatical spirit would not abandon its impulse) in- 
 to an opposition to the church which did not originally belong to it. 
 The prevailing dissatisfaction with a corrupt church and the opposition 
 to that church which existed already in the age, impressed their own 
 peculiar stamp on these appearances also ; and in the next following 
 times these processions took an heretical direction. Those who joined 
 in them spoke of the corruptions of the church, predicted approaching 
 judgments, announced that all the sacraments in the church were pro- 
 faned by her pollutions and had lost their validity, that but one sacra- 
 ment as they supposed remained, which was to copy, after their man- 
 ner, the sufferings of Christ. Hence they were called cruci fratres, 
 Many of them died at the stake. 
 
 ' D'Achery Spicil. Ill, 110: Nam ho- ipsos conturbantes .... Caritas etiam 
 
 mines fucruiit postea ma^^s avari et tcna- ab illo tempore refrigcscerc cocpit valde, 
 
 CCS, cum multo plura bona quam antea et iniquitas abundavit cum ignoiantiis et 
 
 Eossidercnt ; maj^is etiam cupidi et per peccatis. 
 tes, brigas et rixas atque per placita se- 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 Aegidins of Rome, 13, 15. 
 
 Agonst, IJertraiid de. See Clement V. 
 
 Albert of Cnicow, 373. 
 
 Albic, 276, 295. 
 
 Alexander V, 83, 84, 91, 95, 259, 2C5. 
 
 Aiiagni, 12, 46. 
 
 Andreas, tailor at Prague, 318. 
 
 Angelo, Cardinal Peter of St. 293. 
 
 Anna of England, 241. 
 
 Antichrist. Militz's work on. A. Janow's 
 
 work on A. 231, 235. Huss's work on A. 
 
 243. 
 Apostoli, 362. 
 Aqnileia, 76. 
 Aragon, 77. 
 
 Aretin, 71, 72, 73, 76, 77, 100. 
 Armagh, Richard of, 134. 
 Aschbach, 326. n. 
 Austio, 299. 
 Avignon. Residence of the popes in, 20, 42. 
 
 Clement VII, in A. 47. The papal court in 
 
 A. 67, 75, 76. Militz dies in A. 177. 
 
 B 
 
 Bacon, Roger, 134. 
 
 Baden, Hans of, 326. 
 
 Balle, -John, 158. 
 
 Baptise, Bernard, 113, 115. 
 
 Basle, 42, 390. Letters missive for, ano com- 
 mencement of the council at, 128, 133. 
 
 Beghards and Beguines as names of reproach, 
 221, 288, 386. Mystical Beghards, 393. 
 
 Benedict XI, 19. 
 
 Benedict XH. 40, 41. 
 
 Benedict XIII, 52, 55, 56, 112, 118. 
 
 Bombard, bishop of Cita di Castello, 330 
 
 Bibruch, 321. 
 
 Bischofteinitz, 174. 
 
 Black Plague, 383. 
 
 Bohmisch. Brod, 295. 
 
 Bologna, 277. 
 
 Boniface VIIT, 2, 13, 19. Proceedings with 
 regard to his memory, 19, 22. 
 
 Boniface IX, 51, 52, 89, 252, 276. 
 
 Boseo, Peter de, 7. 
 
 Brancas, Cardinal, 272,293. 
 
 Brigitta of Sweden, 44, 222. 
 
 Broda, Andrew of, 258. 
 
 Brogni, Jean de, 344. 
 
 Bruges, 137. 
 
 Brussels, 401. 
 
 Butler, 149. 
 
 C 
 
 Caietan, Cardinal Benedict. See Boniface 
 VIII. 
 
 Cambray, Robert of. See Clement VIL 
 
 Cardinaiis, John. See Reinstein. 
 
 Causis, Michael de, 293, 321, 327, 330, 356, 
 
 376. 
 Cesarini, Cardinal Juliano, 128, 143. 
 Charles IV, 42, 43, 174, 182, 184, 244. 
 Charles V. of France, 48. 
 Charles VI. of France, 52. 
 Charles of Durazzo, king of Naples, 50. 
 Chcsena, Michael of, 25. 
 Chlum, John of, 320, 321, 327, 328, 333, 347, 
 
 356, 367, 368. 
 Cliotek, Bernard, 294. 
 Clemangis, Nicholas of, 53, 55, 56, 62, 64, 70, 
 
 77, 88, 89, 91, 92, 114, 116. 
 Clement V, 20, 23. 
 Clement VI, 41, 43, 232, 412. 
 Clement VII, 47, 56, 57, 164. 
 Clericos laicos, bull, 5. 
 Coelestin V, 2. 
 Cologne, 381. 
 Colonna, the family of, 4, 5, 12, 20, 73. Otto 
 
 of Colonna. See Martin V. 
 Conrad of Waldhausen. See "VValdhausen. 
 Constance, banishment of the clergy at, 42. 
 
 Letters missive for the council of, 101. 
 
 Council of Constance, 103, 128. 
 Corario, Cardinal Angelo. See Gregory 
 
 XII. ^ ^ 
 
 Cervaro, Peter of. See Nicholas V. 
 Cossa, Balthasar. See John XXIU. 
 Courtney, 148. 
 Cracow, 373. • 
 Cracowec, 316. 
 Cremsia, 174. 
 Creutz, 236. 
 Cusa, Nicholas of, 130. 
 
 D 
 
 Dacher, 326. n. 
 
 D'Ailly, 257, 340, 343, 354. 
 
 Dante, 11. 
 
 Defensor pacis. See Marsilius of Padua. 
 
 Duba, Wenzel of, 320, 321, 342 
 
 Durand, 245. 
 
 E 
 Ebnerin, l\rargaret, 383. 
 Echart, Master, 393. 
 Edward III, 134, 140. 
 Ernest, Archbishop of Prague, 186. 
 Eugine IV, 128, 243. 
 
 413 
 
 Falkenberg, John of, 127. 
 Faulfisch, Nicholas of, 246. 
 
 35* 
 
414 
 
 GENERAL IXDEX. 
 
 Ferredi, 46. 
 
 Festum fatuorum, 81. 
 
 Flagellants, 412. 
 
 Franciscans, the more strict and the more 
 
 lax, 24, 46. 
 Frederic VI., burgrave of Nuremberg, 342. 
 Frederic of Austria, 102, 106, 111. 
 Friends of God, 42, 381, 412. 
 
 G 
 
 Gentianus, 109, 111. 
 
 Gennans, protest of the Germans at Con- 
 stance, 121, 124. Emigration of the Ger- 
 mans from Prague, 253. 
 
 Gerson, 53, 63, 78, 83, 85, 87, 92, 93, 94, 100, 
 107, 108, 127, 128, 316, 352, 375. 
 
 Ghibellmes and Guelphs, 3, 4, 24, 412. 
 
 Gottleben, 112, 340. 
 
 Greeks, union with the. Gerson on this 
 subject, 92, 93. Jerome of Prague on tliis 
 subiecr, 373, 374. 
 
 Gregorv XI, 44, 45, 56, 127, 137, 146, 182. 
 
 GregorV XII, 71, 112, 255, 276. 
 
 Grosshead, Robert, 134. 
 
 H 
 
 Hallam, Robert, 121. 
 
 Hardr, Hermann of, 330. 
 
 Heidelberg, 372. 
 
 He<sen, Henrv of. See Langenstem. 
 
 Hildegard, the prophecies of, 381. 
 
 Hirsciiau, 374. 
 
 Hubncr, 246. 
 
 Huss, 48, 235, 371. 
 
 Hussinetz, 235. 
 
 Indulgences,Wicklif agamst Indulgences, 180. 
 
 Huss on, 280, 287. 
 Innocent VI, 44. 
 Innocent VII, 70, 247. 
 Inquisition, 392. 
 Islep, 135, 136. 
 
 Jacob, 298. 
 
 Jacobellus 331, 338. 
 
 Janduno, John of, 25, 147. 
 
 Janow, Matthias of, 192, 235. 
 
 Jerome of Prague, 245, 253, 254, 286, 3<1, 
 
 380. 
 Jesenic, 272, 294. , „r i it- 
 
 Jews, converted by Conrad of Waldhausen, 
 
 186. 
 Jizin, Mtvster Von, 289. 
 Jistebnitz, Si^und of, 250. 
 Joachim, writings of the abbot, 135, 381. 
 John XXII, 23, 40, 147, 395. 
 John XXIII, 89, 112, 262, 276, 328, 329, 339, 
 
 342. 
 John of Antioch, 108. 
 John, Patriarch of Constantmople, 330. 
 John of Leitomvsl, 296, 297, 340. 
 John, bishop of Lubec, (Lebus) 330. 
 John of Paris, 13, 15, 19, 153. 
 Jubilee, J. Boniface VIII, 3. Reduction of 
 
 the time of the J. to 50 years by Clement 
 
 VI, 41. Reduction to 30 years by Urban 
 
 \l] 51. 
 
 Knighton, 150. 
 
 Knights 'lemplar,suppression of their order,23. 
 
 Knin, Matthias, Pater of, 250. 
 
 Kozihradek, 299. 
 
 L 
 
 Ladislaus of Naples, 73, 75, 90, 100, 276, 283. 
 
 Lambeth, 148. 
 
 Lancaster, Duke of, 93, 136, 147, 162. 
 
 Langenstein, Henry of. From Hessia, 46, 49. 
 
 Langham, Simon, 136. 
 
 Latzeraljack, Henry of, 328. 
 
 Lazan, Henry of, 316. 
 
 Lazan, Lefl of, 317. 
 
 Leipsic, 254. 
 
 Leitmeritz, 184. 
 
 Lenfant, 360. 
 
 Limoisin, 46. 
 
 Lollards, 143, 144. 
 
 London, council at, 164. 
 
 Lord's Supper. Wicklifs doctrine of the, 155, 
 159. Janow on the frequent participation 
 of, 220, 231. Janow's approval of the dis- 
 tribution of the Lord's Supper in both 
 forms, 231. 
 
 Louis, the Bavarian, 24, 43. 
 
 Louis of Bavaria, 112, 370. 
 
 Lucca, 74, 75. 
 
 Luna, Peter of. See Benedict XIIL 
 
 Lutterworth, 142. 
 
 Lyons, Clement's coronation at, 20. 
 
 M 
 
 Malatesta, 112. 
 
 Marci, Cardinal S., 104, 340. 
 
 Marseilles, 72. 
 
 Marsilius of Padua, author of the Defensor 
 pacis, 225, 235. 
 
 Martin V, 126, 128. 
 
 Martin, disciple of Huss, 320. 
 
 Mauritius of Prague, 259. 
 
 Mendicants, Clemangis on the, 59. Richard 
 of Armagh, their opponent, 135. Wicklif 
 and the mendicants, 137, 141, 145, 161. 
 MiUtz and the mendicants, 198. Conrad of 
 Waldhausen and the mendicants, 203. 
 
 Merswin, Rulmann, 387. 
 
 Michael of Deutschbrod, or de Causis, 293, 
 300, 321. 
 
 Milheim, .John of, 235. 
 
 Militz, 173, 183, 235. 
 
 Mladenowic, Peter of, 320, 332, 342, 367, 375. 
 
 Kebel, John of, 250. 
 Kloukot, 182. 
 
 K 
 
 N 
 Nass, Doctor, 272. 
 Nicholas V, 36, 37. 
 Nicholas of Basle, 390. 
 Nicholas of Leitomysl, 246. 
 Nieder, John, 381. 
 
 Niem, Theodoric of, 52, 56, 72, 74, 75, 89, 91. 
 Nordlingen, Henrj- of, 222, 383. 
 Nogaret, William of, 12. 
 Nurenberg, 320, 381. 
 
 
 
 Occam, William, 25, 38, 40. 
 
 Oertel, John, 299. 
 
 Ofen, 373. 
 
 Oxford, 134, 135, 142, 146, 241, 244. 
 
 Paganus, Peter, 244. 
 Palackv, 243, 244, n. 
 
 Paletz,'ll8, 244, 295, 310, 321, 327, 330, 331, 
 336, 356. 
 
INDEX OF NAMES, ETC. 
 
 415 
 
 Pantheistic Fi-icnds of Ood, 303. 
 Pappenlicini, inartiai of the empire, 371 
 Paris, university of, 232, 371, 4U7. Li 
 
 beral 
 
 tendencies of, 21, 48, 49, 52, 54, 90, 91, 93. 
 See also Gerson, D'Ailly, Clemangis, Lan- 
 genstein. 
 
 Pa'via, 128. 
 
 Peray, Henry, 147. 
 
 Pernau,320.' 
 
 Peter of Dresden, 338. 
 
 ]*etrarch, 44, G7. 
 
 Pliilaro-i, Cardinal Peter. See Alexander V. 
 
 Philip the Fair of France, 5. 
 
 Piccoloniini, Aeneas Silvio, 380. n. 
 
 Pisa, flight of the cardinals of Gregory XII 
 to I*. 77. Appointment of the council at 
 Pisa, 77, Council of P. 82, 87, 
 
 Plaul, Master, 83, 
 
 Plescow, 373. 
 
 Pognrio, 378, 379. 
 
 Prachatic, 316. 
 
 Prachatic, Christinnn of, 298, 310, 
 
 Pra.irue, 254, Svnod of Prague A, D. 1389, 
 220, 233. Synod of Prague A. D. 1413, 
 297. Trial at Prague A. I). 1414, 256. See 
 also IMilitz, Conrad of Waldhausen, Huss, 
 Jerome. 
 
 Prato, Cardinal da, 20, 22. 
 
 Predestination, doctrine of, by Wicklif, 167, 
 
 1G8. 
 Privagno of Ban, See Urban VI, 
 Property, rights of. Wicklifs views re- 
 specting the, 140. Views of Huss, 269. 
 
 R 
 
 Ratolfszell, 112. 
 
 Ketchenthal, Ulrie, 326. 
 
 Peinstein, John Cardinalis of, 272, 320, 328, 
 
 Kichard H, 147. 
 
 ]^)ger, cardinal ; see Gregory XL 
 
 Pome, council at, A. D. 1412, 90; Militz at 
 
 Pome, 182; Conrad of Waldhausen at II. 
 
 184; Janow at Kome, 186. 
 Pudolph of Austria, 191. 
 Pujjerr, em])eror, 84, 256. 
 Puy.sbrock, 386, 396, 401, 407. 
 
 Saint-worship, opposed by Wicklif, 170; de- 
 fended by Huss, 324. 
 
 Saiset de Pamiers, 6. 
 
 Sacraments, Wicklif opposed to the multi- 
 plication of, 170 ; see also Lord's Supper. 
 
 Savona, 74, 
 
 Schaffhansen, 106, 339, 
 
 f>chi?m in the church, 47, 107. 
 
 Siena, 74, 128. 
 
 Siena, Catharine of, 44. 
 
 Sigismuiid, emperor, 100, 101, 105, 107, 108, 
 111, 118, 126, 317, 318, 329,339,343,355 
 359, 368, 369, 370. 
 
 Sophia of Bohemia, 271, 287. 
 
 Stekna, 258. 
 
 Steplien of Dola, 251, 262, 295. 
 Stitnev, Thomas of, 245. n. 
 Strass'burg, 383, 389. 
 Suabia, 411. • 
 Sudbury, 148, 161. 
 Suso, UTenry, 388, 411. 
 
 T 
 
 Tauler, 382, 383, 407, 411. 
 
 Theod(n-ic, disciple of Militz, 180. 
 
 Tiem, Wenzel, 321. 
 
 Toulouse, university of, C4. 
 
 Transubstantiation,"doctrine of; attacked by 
 Wicklif, 151, 157; Huss on the doctrine of, 
 271, 280, 337, 338, 339; Stanislaus of Znu- 
 im on the doctrine of, 244. 
 
 Trevisa, John of, 149. 
 
 Turlepinus, 214. 
 
 U 
 
 Ueberlingen, 374. 
 Unigenitus, constitution, 41. 
 Unam sanctam, bull, 8. 
 Urban V, 44, 136, 179. 
 Urban VI, 46, 47, 164, 223. 
 Urie, Zacharias of, 107. 
 
 Vechta, Conrad of, 295. 
 
 Vienna, 372. 
 
 Vienne, council at A. D. 1311, 42; Nicholas 
 
 of Basle burnt at, 392. 
 Villani on Boniface VII, 2; on his death, 13; 
 
 on Clement V, 22, 23 ; on John XXU, and 
 
 his deposition, 36, 38. 
 Vincennes, 48. 
 Viterbo, 74. 
 
 W 
 
 Waldensians, 390. 
 
 Waldhausen, Conrad of, 183, 192, 258. 
 
 Wallenrod, John of, 368. 
 
 Wellenowitz, Nicholas of, 250. 
 
 Wenzel of Bohemia, 241, 252, 255, 271, 298. 
 
 Winterther, John of, 41, 42, 43. 
 
 Wistow, 372. 
 
 Wickhf, 135, 173; Wicklifs influence on 
 Huss and Wicklifite movements in Bohe- 
 mia, 240. 
 
 Wilsnack, 337. 
 
 Witepsk, 373. 
 
 Witold of Lithuania, 373. 
 
 Wladislaw of PoIand,373. 
 
 Woodhall, 135. 
 
 Zabarella, 109, 110, 272, 344, 345, 355, 379. 
 
 Zbynek 237, 247, 252, 272, 272, 273. 
 
 Zdenek of Labaun, 298. 
 
 Zebrak, 293. 
 
 Znaim, Peter of, 244. 
 
 Znaim, Stanislaus of, 235, 244, 295. 
 
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