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TO THE EXILE OF HUS
77
condemn not, and you shall not be condemned.[1] And yet you judge me, and in your book you condemn the soul of Wyclif.[2] Where is revelation, or Scripture, or personal acquaintance, that you condemn a man who stands at the bar of God? Would it not suffice you to condemn the man’s words, and to wait for his condemnation by God’s word or Holy Scripture?
Though deserted by his former friends, Hus was not alone. ‘Women without number and powerful nobles’ rallied to his cause, while the people, under the lead of that stormy petrel of reform, Jerome of Prague, once more took matters into their own hands. As usual in such cases, liberty speedily degenerated into licence. On June 24, 1412, Woksa of Waldstein drove up with a cart in which sat two harlots, or two students dressed up as harlots, ‘with the papal bulls tied round their breasts.’ An armed mob conducted the procession through the streets and
- ↑ Luke vi. 37.
- ↑ In a sermon before the Synod and in the presence of Zbinek (probably in June 1408), Hus had stated: ‘I could hope that my soul should be where rests the soul of Wyclif.’ His enemies added that he had claimed that Wyclif was a ‘Catholic doctor,’ but Hus argued that ‘Catholic’ cannot be expressed in Czech, and therefore he could not have said it. This famous wish of Hus was never forgiven or forgotten. It forms part of the charge of the Englishman Stokes, to which Hus replied as follows: ‘I will not grant that Wyclif is a heretic, I will not affirm a negative, but I hope that he is not, since in doubtful matters one ought to choose the better part. Wherefore, I hope that Wyclif is among the saved.’ At Constance Hus had to deal with the matter again. The reason for the heat with which the question was debated lay in the fact that Wyclif had never been condemned or even excommunicated during his lifetime. Was it possible, then, to condemn him ‘in anima’? We have a curious illustration of the importance of this question in the Lollard Purvey’s Remonstrance, p. 133 (see my Age of Wyclif, i. 306), as also in the famous Oxford forgery of October 5, 1406 (ib. i. 241–2). Wyclif, we must remember, was not formally condemned until the Council of Constance (May 4, 1415), unless, indeed, we count the curious Lateran Council of February 2, 1413. The reference to Dolein’s ‘book’ is a general reference to the Medulla Tritici, whose other and more significant title was Antiwikliffus.
