tried terminology, urged him to act with boldness in hunting up the foxes that destroy the vine, in cutting out the putrid flesh, and casting away the diseased sheep that it may no longer infect the flock. “Let us,” he went on, “place ourselves as a wall for the defense of the house of God, that we may stand in the battle in the day of the Lord.”
In a brief reply to Gerson, Konrad expressed readiness to be diligent in extirpating the errors of that pernicious arch-heretic John Wyclif, deceased. But his language does not betoken zeal in the matter of Huss’s prosecution.
Thus Huss had against him the pope, the curia, the university of Paris, and the great theological authority of Europe, John Gerson. In the case of Luther, the universities of Paris, Cologne, and Louvain burned his books and Leo X and the curia were against him, but no theological leader of the fame of Gerson was represented among his enemies. The fame of Erasmus, who half-heartedly put himself on the opposite side, was of another sort. Only too well did Huss know what it meant to be a heretic. Writing to Prachaticz, April, 1413, he had said: “They pronounce me a heretic. For it follows that whatever decision is sent forth by the Holy Roman Church, that is, by the pope in conjunction with the cardinals, that decision is to be held as the faith. He with his household decides that indulgences emptying pocket and purse[1] are catholic, therefore this decision must be held as of the faith. But thou, Huss, hast preached the opposite. Therefore renounce thy heresy or be burned.”
The end of the period of his retirement was near its close. Events were rapidly converging toward the council to be held in Constance. Later, behind the dungeon walls in that city, he must often have gone back with pleasure to the days of preaching in the free country of Bohemia and, at the same time, he must have asked himself the question whether per
- ↑ A pera et a bursa, a play on the words a pœna et culpa. Doc., 58. Mon., 1: 398.
