order. The emperor still feared or feigned to fear that Hus would escape him. Articles of accusation against Hus were again read out, and the first subject discussed were the difficult questions connected with the sacrament, the remanence of bread, and transubstantiation. Hus seems to have been allowed a somewhat greater liberty of speech than on the first day of the trial. It was stated that Hus had in his sermons in the Bethlehem chapel repeated Wycliffe’s teaching on the question of transubstantiation.[1] Cardinal D’Ailly, who presided, believed that it would be easy for him, who was famed as one of the most brilliant dialectitians of his day, to confound Hus, of whose intellectual powers he appears to have had a mean opinion. To him—and the opinion has been revived by some modern writers—Hus appeared as a man of little education, who only copied and repeated Wycliffe’s views. As already mentioned, recent research has proved that Hus was a man of learning, not unversed in scholastic controversy. He certainly proved it on this occasion. When Hus stated that he believed in transubstantiation, D’Ailly asked him in the terminology of scholasticism whether he believed in “universals” (universalia a parte rei). Hus affirmed that he did so, and the cardinal now wished to force him to draw the consequence that if “universals” were admitted the transformation of the substance of the consecrated bread (transubstantiatio) could not be maintained; for if Hus taught the doctrine of transubstantiation, he would have to admit that together with the cessation of the individuality (singulare) of the consecrated bread, its universale also ended. Hus, with great perspicacity, refuted the insidious arguments of D’Ailly, by stating that he considered transubstantiation as an exceptional case in which, together with the singulare, the universale also ceased to exist; in all other cases the
- ↑ Nothing is more complicated, and indeed contradictory, than Wycliffe’s teaching with regard to transubstantiation and communion. The accusation was intentionally vague.
