David Schley Schaff

“ How can he sell what God does not want sold? In offering pardons he arrogates to himself the prerogative which is God’s alone, for indulgence is the remission of an injury done to God himself, and this power he cannot commit to a creature. If the pope knows who is to be absolved, then he actually knows who the predestined are. But that he knows as little as he knows the hour when Peter died and the day future judgment. If he is capable of dispensing with the divine sentence, then he infinitely exceeds Peter. ”

“ By his foul and detestable doctrine, John Wyclif had sought to turn the church away from fundamental teachings. No one had ever before assailed the faith under the veil of the Christian religion as he had done and no one had been so perverse and contumacious in defying holy church. His books had been ordered burned and his bones exhumed. His poisonous doctrine had infected the minds of John Huss and Jerome. From such men of perdition the synod had attempted to free the kingdom of Bohemia. ”

“ Such is the contrast of the lives of popes, cardinals, and clerics to the lives of the Apostles that, if they should try to cast out demons according to the power given by Christ, the demons would reply: “Jesus I know and Peter and Paul and the other Apostles I know, but who are you?” As for heresy, nothing is so fatal to the good cause as hypocrisy. Evil that is manifest flees from the light and hides itself. Heresy is pernicious in that many are led away by it, but it is also useful because the faithful are tried by it and are led to isolate themselves from the unbelieving. ”

“ Our bishops and priests of to-day, and especially our cathedral canons, and lazy mass-celebrators, hardly wait for the close of the service to hurry out of church, one part to the tavern and the other part hither and thither to engage in amusements unworthy of a priest, yea, even to dance. The monks prepare dances and entertainments in the public houses in the hope of winning the people and being intrusted with masses, and these rascally ministers of the devil never for a moment think that at the celebration of the Lord’s Supper Christ gives to the disciples his own body and blood. ”

“ While the council continued its sitting, the procession passed along on its dismal way. As Huss noticed the flames which were consuming his books in the churchyard, he said smiling to the bystanders, not to believe that he was about to die for errors, for they were falsely imputed to him. Almost all of the city was on the streets—women, as Richental is careful to say, as well as men—but the larger part of the throng was kept back from fear that the bridge at the Geltinger Gate might break down under the weight of so great a crowd. ”

“ He had gone to Constance to rid Bohemia of the ill fame of heresy. Witnesses, more in number than his enemies and more trustworthy than they, had borne testimony that he had never preached anything unsound or heretical, but, on the contrary, only the truth and the divine law as set forth in the sacred Scriptures and explained by the holy Fathers. In spite of law and the king’s public promise, Huss had been cast into prison. All Bohemia was burdened with the disgrace and shame of having an innocent man treated like a criminal. ”

“ The Lord knows who are his own.” Heresy was to be treated as a piece of putrid flesh, to be burned like scorpions with the sting of damnation in their tails, to be cut out like a cancer, to be broken like the chalice of Babylon filled with poison. The legislation of Frederick II and Louis IX, which punished heretics turned over to the magistrate by the church with death in the flames, was at last followed by the English parliament, which in 1401, placed on the statute book the law for the burning of heretics—de comburendo heretico—intended to wipe out Lollardy and Wyclifism. ”

“ Then the buzz turned to a tumult and the council cried out: “Who is like unto those scribes and Pharisees? Do you pretend to mean those who deliver a heretic over to the secular arm?” Huss replied: “Those, I mean, who deliver the innocent over to the secular arm for death, as did the chief priests and Pharisees, who delivered Christ up to Pilate.” Then they shouted: “No, no, here you are speaking of the doctors.” To this the cardinal of Cambray added: “These things as stated in the Treatise are much more serious than the formal articles indicate.” ”

“ If the flesh is weak, let thy grace go before, proceed in the middle, and follow. For without thee we can do nothing, but indeed for thy sake we can go to a cruel death. Vouchsafe a ready spirit, a fearless heart, a right faith, a firm hope and a perfect love, that for thy sake we may lay down our life with all patience and joy. ”

“ Rejoice that to-day the Bread of Angels—that is, God, is made the Bread of men, to revive the hungry with His body, that there may be peace among them, and on earth, etc. Rejoice that God immortal is born, that mortal man may live forever. Rejoice that the rich Lord of the universe lies in a manger, like a poor man, that He may make us needy ones rich. ”

“ A pontiff is set over the church as Joseph was set over his master’s wife, not to debauch her but to guard her interests. A pontiff may be guilty of heresy, and by that fact is deposed of God. In the boldest and most powerful of these tracts, Nieheim declared that a pope might be worse than the devi—pejor quam diabolus—that he is not infallible and that, like Christ, he is subject to the earthly tribunal. The canons of a council are immutable except as they may be set aside by the decision of a succeeding council, and the pope has no authority to adjourn a council. ”

“ To John of Chlum and Duba he wrote: “What God promises His servants He performs. What He pledges Himself to give, He fulfils. He deceives no one by a safe-conduct. No servant who is faithful to Him does He send away.” [26]
The Scriptures were like springs of living water at which he drank deep drafts to satisfy his spiritual weariness. Again and again he stops at such passages as these: “Fear not them that kill the body and after that have no more that they can do.” “If any man will come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me.” ”

“ No wonder that a man of such warm sympathies should have drawn the people of Bohemia strongly to him.
Martin, with whom Huss had left his will before leaving Prague, he now urged to live according to Christ’s law and preach the Gospel, to cast out the love for rich garments which, alas, he himself had loved and worn. He bade him take delight in reading the Scriptures, especially the New Testament and, when he did not understand what he read, to refer at once to the commentators he had at hand. ”

“ Rejoice with great joy that to-day is born unto us a King, to bestow in its fulness upon us the heavenly kingdom, a Bishop to grant His eternal benediction, a Father of the ages to come, to keep us as His children by His side forever: yea, there is born a Brother beloved, a wise Master, a sure Leader, a just Judge, to the end that there may be glory to God in the highest, etc. ”

“ The chronicler, Walsingham, no doubt represented the official clerical opinion when he characterized the death of Wyclif as “the death of that instrument of the devil, that enemy of the church, that author of confusion to the common people, that image of hypocrites, that idol of heretics, that maker of schism, that sower of hatred, that coiner of lies, who, when he died, breathed out his malicious spirit into the abodes of darkness.” The dead was not left in peace. By Archbishop Arundel’s bidding, Wyclif’s writings were suppressed and by the Lateran decree of 1414 were ordered burned. ”

“ If, however, a priest’s blood be drawn, they put a stop to divine services and compel the guilty person to go to Rome, saying that none save the pope can absolve a man who draws a priest’s blood. But, if a priest cuts off a person’s foot or hand or kills an innocent person, neither is the priest put under the ban nor a stop put to divine services. Why so? Because one devil does not pick out another devil’s eye. ”

“ Later, June 21, he wrote to Hawlik of the Bethlehem chapel not to refuse the cup of the Lord which the Apostles dispensed, for there is no Scripture against it, but only custom. Custom is not to be followed, but Christ’s example. The council, alleging custom, has denied the communion of the cup to laymen, and the priest who dispenses it is a heretic. What madness to damn Christ’s ordinance as an error! Huss urged Hawlik not to oppose Jacobellus longer, lest a schism be made among the faithful—an occurrence which would greatly delight the devil. ”

“ Prague was the capital of the Czech kingdom, and it was fitting that its university, no matter what the old charter was, should be controlled by those who were of the Czech nationality. Though he condemned intermarriages between Czechs and Germans, or at least demanded that the children of such marriages speak Czech, we must not on that account charge him with bigotry. Did he not also say that he preferred a good German to a bad Bohemian? For these reasons Huss lives on in the hearts of a large body of followers and also Catholic admirers in Bohemia. ”

“ He was as a sheep among lions and wolves and, if Huss is to be regarded as a heretic, then scarcely one of all those upon whom the sun has ever looked down can truly be held to have been a Christian. For John Huss committed no greater crime than to assert that a Roman pope of impious life is not the head of the Catholic church. ”

“ When the news of Huss’s death reached Bohemia, a large part of the nation broke out in revolt. The bishop of Leitomysl, the chief Bohemian ecclesiastic at Constance, Sigismund, and the council itself, all three sought to check the rebellion, now by explanations and now by threats. Only a rapid survey can here be given of the devotion shown to Huss’s memory, the development of the parties which honored his name, the desolating crusades which were preached against the Hussites by the pope, the lamentable strife between the two wings of his followers and the extermination of Hussitism. ”

“ The holy general council of Constance called of God . . . As a bad tree is known by its bad fruits, so John Wyclif of damned memory is known by his deadly teachings and the sons of perdition whom he hath begotten, against whom the holy council is bound to rise up, bastard and illegitimate as the offspring is, and to pull out the errors from the Lord’s field as noxious vipers and to provide proper culture that the cancer do not wind its way on to the destruction of others. ”

“ A man apprised of the bull, be he parricide, thief, adulterer, or simoniac, if he confess sins, though he be ever so deficient in his contrition, provided he gave money for this crusade—on him the pope would confer indulgence from guilt and penalty. On the other hand, a man not apprised of the bull, though he keep God’s commands and have only venial sins, if he be contrite and confess and yet does not give money, he will not receive indulgence or pardon. At death, the former goes at once to heaven because he is absolved from the penalty of purgatory and from guilt ”

“ Huss closes his fiery tract by comparing a pontiff who uses the Scriptural power in an unwarranted way to a tyrant. One is to be disobeyed as well as the other. If the papal utterances agree with the law of Christ, they are to be obeyed. If they are at variance with it, then Christ’s disciples must stand loyally and manfully with Christ against all papal bulls whatsoever and be ready, if necessary, to endure malediction and death. When the pope uses his power in an unscriptural way, to resist him is not a sin, it is a mandate. ”

“ The university of Prague, founded by a double charter from the pope and Charles IV, 1347–1348, at once became the chief ornament of the Bohemian capital and made it famous throughout Europe as a seat of study. It was the first university north of the Alps in Central and Northeastern Europe. The universities of Bologna, Paris, and Oxford alone were more famous. Soon after their origin the universities of Europe became the restless centres of intellectual and literary life. ”

“ The village or fortified town was Mary, into whom Jesus entered when the Word was made flesh. Mary is full of pity and most gracious, who stands in God’s presence making intercession for us poor sinners and especially for those who seriously seek her aid. She is to be imitated in her humility as against the devil, in her poverty as against the lusts of the world, and in her chastity as against the temptations of the flesh. As for her assumption, Huss told his hearers that the angels looked on with the same wonder with which they looked on at the ascension of Christ. ”

“ The pope’s call to a crusade, involving the killing of Christians under Ladislaus’s rule and their spoliation is plainly against Christ’s word to Peter to put up his sword and the rebuke of the disciples who called for vengeance upon the Samaritan village. Therefore, it deserves no obedience. The Scriptures give not a single case of a saint saying: “I have forgiven thy sin. I have absolved thee.” Nor can the case of a saint be discovered who gave indulgence for a given number of years or days from the penalty and guilt of sin. ”

“ The top story was Huss’s place of confinement.
A beautiful view is had through the narrow casement over the lake and to the mountains beyond. A tablet in Czech and German gives the date of Huss’s confinement. Here in this high and airy tower—turri aërosa—as he called it, Huss had freedom to walk about during the day, his feet fettered; and at night his hands were chained with iron manacles fastened to the wall near his bed. So rigorous was the imprisonment at Gottlieben, which lasted more than two months. ”

“ He was in duty bound to speak in the Bethlehem chapel though forbidden by the apostolic see and his diocesan. The condemnation and the cremation had worked ill for the kingdom of Bohemia, and, as for the prohibition of preaching—evangelizatio—it savored not of the way of Christ, who commanded that his Gospel should be preached in the whole world. Even if Wyclif’s writings were found to contain heresies, they ought no more to be burned than are good people to be burned who mingle with heretics or the wheat which is mixed with the chaff. ”

“ He, the head, is cut off. God on earth is bound. His sins are openly declared, the fountain dried up, the sun obscured, the heart torn out, the refuge fled from Constance. The very men who voted to condemn him for heresy because he sold indulgences, bishoprics and benefices—they themselves bought these things from him and did a good business in selling them over again. John of Leitomysl sought twice to purchase the see of Prague for money. Why did the cardinals elect him pope when they knew well that he was a homicide and killed the most holy father? ”

“ Prierias, the Dominican master of the palace, in his tract answering Luther’s Theses, stated the principle anew that the Scriptures derive their authority from the church and the pope, and said, “whoso does not rest upon the doctrine of the Roman Church and the Roman pope as an infallible rule of faith, from which even the Holy Scriptures derive their authority, he is a heretic.” With Huss, a hundred years before, both pope and council were liable to err. The Scriptures alone are infallible, the supreme authority for human opinion and conduct. ”

“ Similarly Peter the Lombard had been charged at the fourth Lateran council with teaching a quaternity in the Deity, but he was not charged with regarding himself as a member of the Godhead, as was Huss.
The appeal Huss had made to God was also condemned. At this point, the prisoner exclaimed with a loud voice: “Oh. Lord God, see how this council condemns thy acts and thy law. I persist in saying that there is no appeal more sacred than the appeal to Jesus Christ, who is not moved by the low motive of reward or deceived by false testimony, but gives to every man what he deserves.” ”

“ The great masters of Paris read large books and that is well; but people who dwell in the inner kingdom of the soul read the true book of life. A pure heart is the throne of the supreme judge, a lamp bearing eternal light, the sanctuary of the only-begotten Son. ”

“ Huss’s primal mistake was that the council would be in a frame to accept from his lips the statement of truth which he found vouched for in the Scriptures. It was the sharp criticism of Æneas Sylvius that Huss and Jerome went to Constance more anxious to teach than to be taught—docendi quippe quam discendi cupidiores—and the charge is made that they were obstinate in not hearkening to the council. All men expose themselves to this charge who have a new message and insist upon their message in the face of constituted authority. ”

“ And may the wrath of God omnipotent and his blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul, burn itself against him in this world and the world to come. May the earth fight against him and the ground open and swallow him up alive. ”

“ At these honest words Huss wept and said: “Doctor John, know well that if I felt that I had written or preached anything contrary to the law and to holy mother church which erroneous, I would recall it, God being my witness. But I have always desired and still desire that they show me out of the Scriptures things better and more close to the truth than the things I have written and taught. ”