creator of God’s body.[1] Hus then drew attention to a book, entitled Stella Clericonum, which was then widely read by the clergy. The book contained even more outrageous statements than those mentioned before. Thus the superiority of priests over the Virgin Mary was affirmed.[2] Hus indignantly repudiated these pretensions of the clergy, which he rightly stigmatised as being blasphemous. This little known polemical treatise to a great extent explains the strong opposition to the doctrine of transubstantiation which we find in the writings of many Bohemian church-reformers, though not in those of Hus. Though greatly disapproving of claims such as those mentioned above, Hus always accepted the doctrine of transubstantiation as taught by the Roman Church.
The only other polemical work of this period which I shall mention is Hus’s Answer to the Writings of Stanislas. Stanislas of Znoymo had at the beginning of the Bohemian movement been a favourer of church-reform and a personal friend of Hus. He shared the latter’s admiration of the writings of Wycliffe, and accepted the theories of the English church-reformer far more unconditionally than Hus ever did. Stanislas several times defended the famous articles of Wycliffe before the University of Prague. He afterwards entirely changed his views and became, with Palec and the infamous Michael de causis, one of Hus’s bitterest enemies. It was, of course, the principal task of these enemies to maintain that Hus had expressed heretical opinions, and that they attacked him for this reason, not because he blamed the evil life of the Bohemian priests. Stanislas had written a book, known from its opening words as Alma Venerabilis. This book has not been preserved and we can only judge of its contents by Hus’s refutation. It is certain that in his work Stanislas dealt largely
- ↑ “Articulus secundus ponit quod Sacerdos postquam officiat est pater Dei et creator corporis Dei.” (Hus Opera, 1715, vol. i. p. 181.)
- ↑ “Unde assumpto mendacio arguunt (the priests) sic: Si virgo Maria est beata, vel digna quia semel Christum genuit, beatior vel dignior est quilibet sacerdos, qui eum saepe creavit, et potest creare quando vult.” (Ibid. p. 182.)
