was a fraud and the archbishop followed up the report with a decree forbidding all pilgrimages to Wylsnack.[1]
The investigation was followed by a heated discussion in the university as to whether all of Christ’s blood was glorified or not. And for the moment it seemed as if this question had obscured the importance of all other theological debate and effort at church reform in the city. It called forth from Huss’s pen a treatise entitled The Blood of Christ—de sanguine Christi.[2]
Here the author states the claim made for the miraculous relic justified the archbishop who had acted “as a true shepherd” in ordering the investigation, and makes an argument to prove the liquid a fraud. The argument is based upon Scripture, the authority of the church, and reason. For the statement that the entire body of Christ—hair, beard, and blood, yea, all the parts of Christ's earthly body—are glorified and no one of them exists on the earth, he adduced such Scripture texts as I Cor. 15: 19, “It is sown a natural body and raised a spiritual body,” and Luke 21: 18, “Not a hair of your head shall perish,” as also the words revealed to David, “Thou shalt not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption,” Psalms 16: 10. In regard to the red spots shown on garments alleged to have been worn by the Virgin and on the cross and thorns from Christ’s crown, these were only an appearance; the substance was not there. Christ’s foreskin, which was reported to be in Rome, was not genuine, in spite of the fact that the number deceived thereby was large. Likewise Christ’s beard and the milk from Mary’s breast, shown in Prague, were frauds, even though the worshippers believing them genuine were many. It was fitting that none of Christ’s
- ↑ Documenta, 332.
- ↑ Monumenta, 1: 191–202. Flajshans ed., pp. xvi, 30, with literature in Introduction. Flajshans, p. xvi, pronounces the value of the tract historical and not dogmatic, inasmuch as the Catholics deny Huss’s conclusion as to relics of Christ, because Huss left out one of the considerations advanced by Thomas Aquinas; and Protestants, on the other hand, do not find enough references to Scripture or else find the Scripture texts inapposite.
