place at table, they strangely mark their displeasure, and they dispute much for the foremost place in the schools.” After a reference to the pride of the monk Marik, one of Hus’s adversaries at Prague, Hus continues his reflections on the magisters, whom he compares to the Pharisees. He writes: “Our Saviour said that they (the magisters) love the first places at assemblies, they spread out the edges of their robes and cloaks and tabards and mantles. Alas! I also had these tabards, robes with wide sleeves, capes lined with white fur; for, alas! thus have they hedged in the rank of magister that you cannot attain it if you have not these garments. Therefore to guard men against pride did Our Saviour say to his disciples and the people: ‘But be not ye called Rabbi, for one is your master, even Christ.’[1] Of these words St. Jerome has said that Christ thus wished to check evil desires, so that none might from pride claim to be called master. And truly I do not understand how a man can worthily be a master unless it be that he may have a better place to teach God’s truth, and that he may more bravely speak the truth and defend it. But I have already found that simple poor priests, poor laymen, and women defend the truth more bravely than doctors of the Holy Writ, who from fear flee from the truth and dare not speak it. And I, myself, alas! was he who dared not sincerely and openly preach the truth. And why are we (magisters) thus? Because we are cowardly, fearing some of us to lose the praise of the world, and its favour, others (fearing to lose) our income. We are as the Jewish priests of whom St. John wrote: ‘Among the chief rulers many believed in him, but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue. For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.’”[2]
The extreme conscien tiousness and the extreme humility of Hus areappare nt in this chapter. He deeply repented the natural, momentary pleasure which the son of the peasant of
