§ 119. Evangelical Efforts at Reform.Alongside of the Parisian reformers, but far in advance of them, stand those of the English and Bohemian churches represented by Wiclif and Huss. The reformation aimed at by these two was essentially of the same kind, Wiclif being the more original, while Huss was largely dependent upon his great English precursor. For in personal endowment, speculative power, rich and varied learning, acuteness and wealth of thought, originality and productivity of intellect, the Englishman was head and shoulders above the Bohemian. On the other hand, Huss was far more a man for the people, and he conducted his contention in a sensible, popular, and practical manner. There were also powerful representatives of the reform movement in the Netherlands during this period, who pointed to Scripture and faith in the crucified Saviour as the only radical cure for the corruptions of the church. While Wiclif and Huss attached themselves to the Augustinian theology, the Dutchmen gave themselves to quiet, calm contemplation and the acquirement of practical religious knowledge. In Italy too a reformer appeared of a strongly evangelical spirit, who did not however show the practical sense of those of the Netherlands.
Alongside of the Parisian reformers, but far in advance of them, stand those of the English and Bohemian churches represented by Wiclif and Huss. The reformation aimed at by these two was essentially of the same kind, Wiclif being the more original, while Huss was largely dependent upon his great English precursor. For in personal endowment, speculative power, rich and varied learning, acuteness and wealth of thought, originality and productivity of intellect, the Englishman was head and shoulders above the Bohemian. On the other hand, Huss was far more a man for the people, and he conducted his contention in a sensible, popular, and practical manner. There were also powerful representatives of the reform movement in the Netherlands during this period, who pointed to Scripture and faith in the crucified Saviour as the only radical cure for the corruptions of the church. While Wiclif and Huss attached themselves to the Augustinian theology, the Dutchmen gave themselves to quiet, calm contemplation and the acquirement of practical religious knowledge. In Italy too a reformer appeared of a strongly evangelical spirit, who did not however show the practical sense of those of the Netherlands.
§ 119.1.Wiclif and the Wiclifites.—In England the kings and the Parliament had for a long time withstood the oppressive yoke of the papal hierarchy. Men too like John of Salisbury, Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, and Thomas Bradwardine had raised their voices against the inner corruption of the church.John Wiclif, a scholar of Bradwardine, was born aboutA.D.1320. As fellow of the University of Oxford, he supported inA.D.1366 the English Crown against the payment of tribute to the papal court then at Avignon, admitted by John Lackland (§96, 18), of which payment had now for a long time been refused. This secured him court favour, the title of doctor, and a professorship of theology at Oxford; and inA.D.1374 he was chosen as member of a commission which was to discuss at Brügge in the Netherlands with the papal envoys the differences that had arisen about the appointing to ecclesiastical offices. After his return he openly spoke and wrote against the papal “antichrist” and his doctrines. Gregory XI. now, inA.D.1377, condemned nineteen propositions from his writings, but the English court protected him from the strict inquiry and punishment threatened. Meanwhile Wiclif was ever becoming bolder. Under his influence religious societies were formed which sent out travelling preachers of the gospel among the people. By their opponents they were called Lollards (§116, 3), a name to which the stigma of heresy was already attached. Wiclif translated for them the Scriptures from the Vulgate into English. The bitterness of his enemies now reached its height. Just then, inA.D.1381, a rebellion of the oppressed peasants that deluged all England with blood broke out. Its origin has been quite gratuitously assigned to the religious movement. When he had directly repudiated the doctrine of transubstantiation, a synod at London, inA.D.1382, condemned his writings and his doctrine as heretical, and the university also cast him out. Court and Parliament could only protect his person. He now retired to his rectory at Lutterworth in Leicestershire, where he died on 31st December, 1384.—For five centuries his able writings were left unprinted, to moulder away in the obscurity of libraries. His English works have now been edited by Matthews, London, 1880. Lechler of Leipzig edited Wiclif’s most complete and comprehensive work, the “Trialogus” (Oxford, 1869), in which his whole theological system is developed. Buddensieg of Dresden published the keen antipapal controversial tract, “De Christo et suo adversario Antichristo” (Leipzig, 1880). The Wiclif Society, instituted at the fifth centenary of Wiclif’s death for the purpose of issuing critical editions of his most important works, sent forth as their first performance Buddensieg’s edition of “twenty-six Latin controversial tracts of Wiclif’s from MSS. previously unprinted,” in 2 vols., London, 1883. Among Wiclif’s systematic treatises we are promised editions of theSumma theologiæ,De incarnatione Verbi,De veritate s. Scr.,De dominio divino,De ecclesia,De actibus animæ, etc., some by English, some by German editors.—As the principle of all theology and reformation Wiclif consistently affirms the sole authority of Divine revelation in the Holy Scriptures. He has hence been calleddoctor evangelicus. Anything that cannot be proved from it is a corrupting human invention. Consistently carrying out this principle, he denounced the worship of saints, relics, and images, the use of Latin in public worship, elaborate priestly choir singing, the multiplication of festivals, private masses, extreme unction, and generally all ceremonialism. The Catholic doctrine of indulgence and the sale of indulgences, as well as the ban and the interdict, he pronounced blasphemous; auricular confession he regarded as a forcing of conscience; the power of the keys he explained as conditional, its binding and loosing powerless, except when in accordance with the judgment of Christ. He denied the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, and affirmed, like Berengar, a spiritual communication thereof, which however he makes dependent, not only on the faith of the receiver, but also on the worthiness of the officiating priest. The doctrine of purgatory he completely rejected, and supported Augustine’s predestinationism against the prevalent semipelagianism. The papacy was antichrist; the pope has his power only from the emperor, not from God. The hierarchical system should be replaced by the apostolic presbyterial constitution. Ordination confers no indelible character; a priest who has fallen into mortal sin cannot dispense the sacrament. Every believer is as such a priest. The State is a representation of Christ, as the God-Man ruler of the universe; the clergy represent only the poor and suffering life of His humanity. Monkery is contrary to nature, etc.—Wiclif’s supporters, many of them belonging to the noblest and most cultured orders, were after his death subjected to violent persecution, which reached its height when the House of Lancaster in the person of Henry IV. ascended the English throne inA.D.1399. An act of parliament was passed inA.D.1400 which made death by fire the punishment of the heresy of the Lollards. Among the martyrs which this law brought to the stake was the noble Sir John Oldcastle, who inA.D.1418 was hung up between two beams in iron chains over a fire and there slowly burnt.The Council of Constance inA.D.1415 condemned forty-five propositions from Wiclif’s writings, and ordered his bones to be exhumed and scattered abroad. Many germs sown by him continued until the Reformation came.348§ 119.2.Precursors of the Hussite Movement.—Owing to its Greek origin (§ 79, 2, 3), the Bohemian church had a certain character of its own and barely tolerated the Roman constitution and ritual. In Bohemia too the Waldensians had numerous supporters during the 13th century. And even before the appearance of Huss three distinguished clergymen in and around Prague by earnest preaching and pastoral work had awakened in many a consciousness of crying abuses in the church.Conrad of Waldhausenwas a famous preacher when called by Charles IV. to Prague, where after fifteen years’ labour he died inA.D.1369. Preaching in German, he inveighed against the cupidity, hypocrisy, and immorality of the clergy and monks, against the frauds connected with the worship of images and relics and shrines, and threw back upon his accusers the charge of heresy in his still extantApologia.More influential than Conrad as a preacher of repentance in Prague wasJohn Milicz of Cremsierin Moravia, who died inA.D.1374. Believing the end of the world near and antichrist already come, he went to Rome inA.D.1367 to place before Urban V. his scheme of apocalyptic interpretation. Escaping with difficulty from the Inquisition, he returned to Prague, and there applied himself with renewed zeal to the preaching of repentance. His preaching led to the conversion of 200 fallen women, for whom he erected an institution which he called Jerusalem. But the begging friars accused him before Gregory XI. as a heretic. Milicz fearlessly went for examination to Avignon inA.D.1374, where he soon died before judgment had been passed. The most important of his works isDe Antichristo.Matthias of Janow, of noble Bohemian descent, died inA.D.1374, after fourteen years’ work as a preacher and pastor in Prague. His sermons, composed in Bohemian, lashed unsparingly the vices of the clergy and monks, as well as the immorality of the laity, and denounced the worship of images and relics. None of his sermons are extant, but we have various theological treatises of his on the distinguishing of the true faith from the false and the frequent observance of the communion. At a Prague synod ofA.D.1389 he was obliged to retract several of his positions, and especially to grant the propriety of confessing and communicating half-yearly. Janow however, like Conrad and Milicz, did not seriously contest any fundamental point of the doctrine of the church.§ 119.3.John Huss of Hussineczin Bohemia, bornA.D.1369, was Bachelor of Theology at Prague, inA.D.1394, Master of Liberal Arts inA.D.1396, became public teacher in the university inA.D.1398, was ordained priest inA.D.1400, undertook a pastorate inA.D.1402 in the Bethlehem chapel, where he had to preach in the Bohemian language, was chosen confessor of Queen Sophia inA.D.1403, and was soon afterwards made synodal preacher by the new archbishop, Sbynko of Hasenburg. Till then he had in pious humility accepted all the doctrines of the Romish Church, and even inA.D.1392 he offered his last four groschen for an indulgence, so that for a long time dry bread was his only nourishment. But aboutA.D.1402 he reached an important crisis in his life through the study of Wiclif’s theological works.—Bohemians who had studied in Oxford brought with them Wiclif’s philosophical works, and inA.D.1348 the discussion on realism and nominalism broke out in Prague. The Bohemians generally sided with Wiclif for realism; the Germans with the nominalists (§113, 3). This helped to prepare an entrance for Wiclif’s theological writings into Bohemia. Of the national party which favoured Wiclif’s philosophy and theology, Huss was soon recognised as a leader. A university decree ofA.D.1403 condemned forty-five propositions from Wiclif’s works as heretical, and forbade their promulgation in lectures or sermons. Huss however was still highly esteemed by Archbishop Sbynko. InA.D.1405 he appointed Huss, with other three scholars, a commission to investigate a reputed miracle at Wilsnack, where on the altar of a ruined church three blood-red coloured hosts were said to have been found. Huss pronounced the miracle a cheat, and proved in a tract that the blood of Christ glorified can only be invisibly present in the sacrament of the altar. The archbishop approved this tract, and forbade all pilgrimages to the spot. He also took no offence at Huss for uttering Wiclifite doctrine in his synod sermon. Only when, inA.D.1408, the clergy of his diocese complained that Huss by his preaching made the priests contemptible before the people, did he deprive him of his function as synod preacher. When the majority of cardinals at Leghorn inA.D.1408 took steps to put an end to the schism, king Wenzel determined to remain neutral, and demanded the assent of the university as well as the clergy of his realm. But only the Bohemian members of the university agreed, while the rest, along with the archbishop, supported Gregory XII. Sbynko keenly resented the revolt of the Bohemians, and forbade Huss as their spokesman to preach within his diocese. Huss paid no attention to the prohibition, but secured a royal injunction, that henceforth in the university Bohemians should have three votes and foreigners only one. The foreigners then withdrew, and founded the University of Leipzig inA.D.1409.Huss was made first rector of the newly organized University of Prague; but the very fact of his great popularity in Bohemia caused him to be profoundly hated in other lands.349§ 119.4. The archbishop escaped prosecution only by unreservedly condemning the doctrines of Wiclif, burning his books, and prohibiting all lectures upon them. Huss and his friends appealed to John XXIII., but this did not prevent the archbishop burning in his palace yard about two hundred Wiclifite books that had previously escaped his search. For this he was hooted in the streets, and compelled by the courts of law to pay the value of the books destroyed. John XXIII. cited Huss to appear at Rome. King, nobles, magistrates, and university sided with him; but the papal commission condemned him when he did not appear, and the archbishop pronounced anathema against him and the interdict against Prague (A.D.1411). Huss appealed to the œcumenical council, and continued to preach. The court forced the archbishop to become reconciled with Huss, and to admit his orthodoxy. Sbynko reported to the pope that Bohemia was free from heresy. He soon afterwards died. The pope himself was the cause of a complete breach, by having an indulgence preached in Bohemia inA.D.1412 for a crusade against Ladislaus of Naples, the powerful adherent of Gregory XII. Huss opposed this by word and writing, and in a public disputation maintained that the pope had no right to grant such indulgence. His most stanch supporter was a Bohemian knight, Jerome of Prague, who had studied at Oxford, and returned inA.D.1402 an enthusiastic adherent of Wiclif’s doctrines. Their addresses produced an immense impression, and two days later their disorderly followers, to throw contempt on the papal party, had the bull of indulgence paraded through the streets, on the breast of a public prostitute, representing the whore of Babylon, and then cast into the flames. But many old friends now withdrew from Huss and joined his opponents. The papal curia thundered against him and his followers the great excommunication, with its terrible curses. Wherever he resided that place was put under interdict. But Huss appealed to the one righteous Judge, Jesus Christ. At the wish of the king he left the city, and sought the protection of various noble patrons, from whose castles he went forth diligently preaching round about. He spread his views all over the country by controversial and doctrinal treatises in Latin and Bohemian, as well as by an extensive correspondence with his friends and followers. Thus the trouble and turmoil grew from day to day, and all the king’s efforts to restore peace were in vain.§ 119.5. The Roman emperor Sigismund summoned Huss to attend the Council of Constance (§110, 7), and promised him a safe-conduct. Though not yet in possession of this latter, which he only got at Constance, trusting to the righteousness of his cause, for which he was quite willing to die a martyr’s death, he started for Constance on 11th October,A.D.1414, reaching his destination on 3rd November. On 28th November he was sentenced to imprisonment at a private conference of the cardinals, on the pretended charge of an attempt at flight, first in the Dominican cloister, then in the bishop’s castle of Gottlieben, where he was put in chains, finally in the Franciscan cloister. Sigismund, who had not been forewarned when he was cast into prison, ordered his release; but the council convinced him that Huss, arraigned as a heretic before a general council, was beyond the reach of civil protection. His bitterest enemies and accusers were two Bohemians, Michael of Deutschbrod and Stephan of Palecz. The latter extracted forty-two points for accusations from his writings, which Huss from his prison retracted. D’Ailly and Gerson were both against him. The brave knight John of Chlum stood faithfully by him as a comforter to the last. For almost seven months was he harassed by private examinations, in which, notwithstanding his decided repudiation of many of them, he was charged with all imaginable Wiclifite heresies. The result was the renewed condemnation of those forty-five propositions from Wiclif’s writings, which had been condemnedA.D.1408 by the University of Prague. At last, on 5th June,A.D.1415, he was for the first time granted a public trial, but the tumult at the sitting was so great that he was prevented from saying a single word. Even on the two following days of the trial he could do little more than make a vain protest against being falsely charged with errors, and declare his willingness to be better instructed from God’s word. The humility and gentleness of his demeanour, as well as the enthusiasm and believing joyfulness which he displayed, won for him many hearts even outside of the council. All possible motives were urged to induce him to submit. Sigismund so exhorted him, with the threat that if he did not he would withdraw his protection. The third and last day of trial was 8th June,A.D.1415, and judgment was pronounced in the cathedral church on the 6th July. After high mass had been celebrated, a bishop mounted the pulpit and preached on Romans vi. 6. He addressed Sigismund, who was present, “By destroying this heretic, thou shalt obtain an undying name to all ensuing generations.” Once again called upon to recant, Huss repeated his previous protests, appealed to the promise of a safe-conduct, which made Sigismund wince and blush, and kneeling down prayed to God for his enemies and unjust judges. Then seven bishops dressed him in priestly robes in order to strip him of them one after another amid solemn execrations. Then they put on him a high pyramidal hat, painted with figures of devils, and bearing the inscription,Hæresiarcha, and uttered the words, “We give thy soul to the devil.” He replied: “I commend it into the hands of our Saviour Jesus Christ.” On that same day he was given over by Sigismund to Louis Count-palatine of the Rhine, and by him to the Constance magistrates, and led to the stake. Amid prayer and praise he expired, joyfully, courageously, and confidently, showing himself worthy to rank among the martyrs who in the best times of Christianity had sealed their Christian confession with their blood. His ashes were scattered on the Rhine. The later Hussites, in accordance with an old Christian custom (§ 39, 5), celebrated the day of his death as thedies natalisof the holy martyr John Huss.—Jerome of Praguehad gone unasked to Constance. When he saw that his longer stay would not help his friend, but only involve himself in his fate, he left the city; but was seized on the way, and taken back in chains in April,A.D.1415. During a severe half-year’s imprisonment, and wearied with the importunities of his judges, he agreed to recant, and to acquiesce in the sentence of Huss. But he was not trusted, and after as before his recantation he was kept in close confinement. Then his courage revived. He demanded a public trial before the whole council, which was at last granted him in May,A.D.1416. There he solemnly and formally retracted his previous retractation with a believer’s confidence and a martyr’s joy. On May 30th,A.D.1416, he, too, died at the stake, joyfully and courageously as Huss had done. The Florentine humanist Poggio, who was present, has given enthusiastic expression in a still extant letter to his admiration at the heroic spirit of the martyr.§ 119.6. In all his departures from Romish doctrine Huss was dependent upon Wiclif, not only for the matter, but even for the modes of expression. He did not however separate himself quite so far from the Church doctrines as his English master. He firmly maintained the doctrine of transubstantiation; he was also inclined to withhold the cup from the laity; and, though he sought salvation only from the Saviour crucified for us, he did not refuse to give any place to works in the justification of the sinner, and even invocation of the saints he did not wholly condemn. While he energetically protested against the corruption of the clergy, he never denied that the sacrament might be efficaciously administered by an unworthy priest. In everything else however he was in thorough agreement with the English reformer. The most complete exposition of his doctrine is found in theTractatus de ecclesiaofA.D.1413. Augustine’s doctrine of predestination is its foundation. He distinguishes from the church as a visible human institution the idea of the church as the true body of Christ, embracing all elected in Christ to blessedness from eternity. Its one and only head is Christ: not Peter, not the pope; for this church is no monster with two heads. Originally and according to Christ’s appointment the bishop of Rome was no more than the other bishops. The donation of Constantine first gave him power and dignity over the rest. As the church in the beginning could exist without a pope, so the church unto the end can exist without one. The Christian can obey the pope only where his commands and doctrines agree with those of Christ. In matters of faith Holy Scripture is the only authority. Fathers, councils, and popes may err, and have erred; only the word of God is infallible.—That this liberal reforming Council of Constance, with a Gerson at its head, should have sentenced such a man to death is not to be wondered at when we rightly consider how matters stood. His hateful realism seemed to the nominalistic fathers of the council the source of all conceivable heresies. It had even been maintained that realism consistently carried out would give a fourth person to the Godhead. His devotion to the national interests of Bohemia in the University of Prague had excited German national feeling against him. And, further, the council, which was concerned only with outward reforms, had little sympathy with the evangelical tone of his spirit and doctrine. Besides this, Huss had placed himself between the swords of two contending parties. The hierarchical party wished, in order to strike terror into their opponents, to show by an example that the church had still the power to burn heretics; and the liberal party refused to this object of papal hate all protection, lest they should endanger the cause of reformation by incurring a suspicion of sympathy with heresy.—The prophecy said to have been uttered by Huss in his last moments, “To-day you burn a goose (this being the meaning of Huss in Slavonian), but from its ashes will arise a swan (Luther’s coat of arms), which you will not be able to burn,” was unknown to his contemporaries. Probably it originated in the Reformation age from the appeals of both martyrs to the judgment of God and history.Huss had often declared that instead of the weak goose there would come powerful eagles and falcons.350§ 119.7.Calixtines and Taborites.—During the imprisonment of their leader the Hussite party was headed by Jacob of Misa, pastor of St. Michael’s church in Prague. With consent of Huss he introduced the use of the cup by the laity and rejected thejejunium eucharisticumas opposed to Matthew xxvi. 26. This led to an interchange of controversial tracts between Prague and Constance on the withholding of the cup. The council decreed that whoever disobeys the Church on this point is to be punished as a heretic. This decree, followed by the execution of Huss, roused Bohemia to the uttermost. King Wenceslaw died inA.D.1419 in the midst of national excitement, and the estates refused to crown his brother Sigismund, “the word-breaker.” Now arose a civil war,A.D.1420-1436, characterized by cruelties on both sides rarely equalled. At the head of the Hussites, who had built on the brow of a steep hill the strong fortress Tabor, was the one-eyed, afterwards blind,John Ziska of Trocznov. The crusading armies sent against the Hussites were one after another destroyed; but the gentle spirit of Huss had no place among most of his followers. The two parties became more and more embittered toward one another. The aristocraticCalixtines(calix, cup) or Utraquists (sub utraque), at whose head was Bishop Rokycana of Prague, declared that they would be satisfied if the Catholic church would concede to them four articles:Communion under both kinds;Preaching of the pure gospel in the vulgar tongue;Strict discipline among the clergy; andRenunciation by the clergy of church property.On the other hand, theTaboriteswould have no reconciliation with the Romish church, regarding as fundamentally corrupt in doctrine and worship whatever is not found in Scripture, and passing over into violent fanaticism, iconoclasm, etc. After Ziska’s death of the plague inA.D.1424, the majority of the Taborites elected Procopius the Great as his successor. A small party that regarded no man worthy of succeeding the great Ziska, refused him allegiance, and styled themselves Orphans. They were the most fanatical of all.—Meanwhile the Council of Basel had met (§110, 8) and after long fruitless negotiations it was resolved inA.D.1433 that 300 Hussite deputies should appear at Basel. After a fifty days’ disputation the four Calixtine articles with certain modifications were accepted by the council. On the basis of thisBasel Compactthe Calixtines returned to the Romish church. The Taborites regarded this as shameful treason to the cause of truth, and continued the conflict. But inA.D.1434 they were utterly annihilated at Böhmischbrod, not far from Prague. In the Treaty of Iglau inA.D.1436 Sigismund swore to observe the compact, and was recognised as king. But the concessions sworn to by church and state were more and more restricted and ultimately ignored. Sigismund died inA.D.1437. In place of his son-in-law, Albert II., the Utraquists set up a rival king in the person of the thirteen year old Polish prince Casimir; but Albert died inA.D.1439. His son, Ladislaus, born after his father’s death, had, in George Podiebrad, a Calixtine tutor. After he had grown up inA.D.1453, he walked in his grandfather’s footsteps, and died inA.D.1457. The Calixtines now elected Podiebrad king, as a firm supporter of the compact. Pius II. recognised him in the hope that he would aid him in his projected war against the Turks. When this hope was disappointed he cancelled the compact, inA.D.1462. Paul II. put the king under him, and had a crusade preached against him. Podiebrad however still held his ground. He died inA.D.1471. His successor, Wladislaw II., a Polish prince, though a zealous Catholic, was obliged to confirm anew to the Calixtines at the Diet of Cuttenberg, inA.D.1485, all their rights and liberties. Yet they could not maintain themselves as an independent community. Those of them who did not join the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren gradually during the 16th century became thoroughly amalgamated with the Catholic church.§ 119.8.The Bohemian and Moravian Brethren.—George Podiebrad took Tabor inA.D.1453, and scattered the last remnants of the Taborites. Joining with the evangelical Friends of God, they received from the king a castle, where, under the leadership of the local pastor, Michael of Bradacz, they formed aUnitas fratrum, and called themselves Bohemian and Moravian Brethren. But inA.D.1461 Podiebrad withdrew his favour, and confiscated their goods. They fled into the woods, and met for worship in caves. InA.D.1467 the most distinguished of the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren met in a Bohemian village, Shota, with the German Waldensians, and chose three brethren by lot as priests, who were ordained by Michael and a Waldensian priest. But when the validity of their ordination was disputed, Michael went to the Waldensian bishop Stephen, got from him episcopal consecration, and then again ordained the three chosen at Shota, one, Matthias of Conewald, as bishop, the other two as priests. This led Rokycana to persecute them all the more bitterly. They increased their numbers however, by receiving the remnants of the Waldensians and many Utraquists, until by the beginning of the 16th century they had four hundred congregations in Bohemia and Moravia. Under Wladislaw II. persecution was stopped fromA.D.1475, but was renewed with great violence inA.D.1503. They sent inA.D.1511 a confession of faith to Erasmus (§120, 6), with the request that he would give his opinion about it; which he however, fearing to be compromised thereby, declined to do. After the death of Bishop Matthias, inA.D.1500, a dislike of monarchy led to the appointment of fourSeniorsinstead of one bishop, two for Bohemia and two for Moravia. The most important and influential of these was Luke of Prague, who died inA.D.1518, rightly regarded as the second founder of the union. He impressed a character upon the brotherhood essentially distinct in respect of constitution and doctrine from the Lutheran Reformation.—Continuation §139, 19.§ 119.9.The Waldensians.The range of the missionary enterprise of theLombard-German Waldensianswas widely extended during the 14th century. At the close of that period it stretched “from western Switzerland across the southern borders of the empire, from the upper and middle Rhine along the Main and through Franconia into Thuringia, from Bohemia up to Brandenburg and Pomerania, and with its last advances reached to Prussia, Poland, Silesia, Hungary, Transylvania, and Galicia.”The anonymous writer of Passau, aboutA.D.1260 or 1316, reports from his own knowledge of numerous “Leonists,” who in forty-two communities, with a bishop at Einzinspach, in the diocese of Passau, were in his time the subject of inquisitorial interference, and in theory and practice bore all the characteristic marks of the Lombard Leonists. The same applies to the Austrian Waldensians, of whose persecution inA.D.1391 we have an account by Peter of Pilichdorf. We may also with equal confidence pronounce the Winkelers, so called from holding their services in secret corners, who about this time appeared in Bavaria, Franconia, Swabia, and the Rhine Provinces, to be Waldensians of the same Lombard type. Their confessors, Winkelers in the narrower sense, were itinerant, celibate, and without fixed abode, carrying on missionary work, and administering the sacrament of penance to their adherents. Although, in order to avoid the attentions of the Inquisition, they took part in the Catholic services, and in case of need confessed to Catholic priests, they were nevertheless traced aboutA.D.1400 to Strassburg. Thirty-two of them were thrown into prison, and induced under torture to confess. The Dominicans insisted that they should be immediately burned, but the council was satisfied with banishing them from the city. At a later period the Hussites obtained an influence over them. One of their most notable apostles at this time was Fr. Reiser of Swabia. In his travels he went to Bohemia, attached himself to the Hussites there, received from them priestly ordination, and inA.D.1433 accompanied their representatives to the Basel Council. Then Procopius procured him a call to a pastorate in the little Bohemian town of Landscron, which, however, he soon abandoned. Encouraged by the reformatory tendency of the council, he now remained for a long time in Basel, then conducted missionary work in Germany, at first on his own account, afterwards at the head of a Taborite mission of twelve agents, in which position he styled himselfFridericus Dei gratia Episcopus fidelium in Romana ecclesia Constantini donationem spernentium. At last, inA.D.1457, he went to Strassburg, with the intention of there ending his days in peace. But soon after his arrival he was apprehended, and inA.D.1458, along with his faithful follower, Anna Weiler, put to death at the stake.—On the Waldensians in German Switzerland, and the Inquisition’s oft repeated interference with them, Ochsenbein gives a full report, drawn from original documents, specially full in regard to the great Inquisition trial at Freiburg, inA.D.1430, consisting of ninety-nine wearisome and detailed examinations. Subsequently terrible persecutions, aiming at their extermination, became still more frequent in Switzerland. Also the Swiss Waldensians already bore unmistakable marks of having been influenced by the Hussites.Finally, Wattenbach has made interesting communications regarding the Waldensians in Pomerania and Brandenburg, based upon a manuscript once in the possession of Flacius, but afterwards supposed to have been lost, discovered again in the Wolfenbüttel library inA.D.1884, though in a very defective form, which contains the original reports of 443 prosecutions for heresy in Pomerania, Brandenburg, and Thuringia. By far the greatest number of these trials were conducted betweenA.D.1373 and 1394, by the Cœlestine provincial Peter, appointed inquisitor by the pope. FromA.D.1383 Stettin was the centre of his inquisitorial activity, and on the conclusion of his work he could boast that during the last two years he had converted to the Catholic faith more than 1,000 Waldensians. The victims of the Inquisition belonged almost exclusively to the peasant and artisan classes. Their objectionable doctrines and opinions are essentially almost the same as those of their ancestors of the 13th century. Although equally with their predecessors they abhorred the practice of the Catholic church, and declared all swearing and slaughter to be mortal sin, they yet in great part, and as it seems even without the application of torture, were persuaded to abjure their heresy, and incurred nothing more than a light penance. They did this, perhaps, only in the hope that their indulgent confessors would absolve them from their sin. The last protocols bring us down toA.D.1458. Since a great number of these heretics were found again in Brandenburg, the elector caused one of their most distinguished leaders, the tailor Matthew Hagen, and three of his disciples to be taken prisoners to Berlin, and commissioned the Bishop of Brandenburg to investigate the case; but owing to his sickness this duty devolved upon John Cannemann, professor and doctor of theology. The elector was himself present at the trial. The investigation showed that the Waldensians of Brandenburg had evidently been influenced in their opinions by the Bohemian Taborites, and that they were constantly in close communion with them, and Hagen confessed that he had been there ordained by Fr. Ryss or Reiser to the clerical office. When Hagen persistently refused to retract, he was delivered over to the civil authorities for punishment, and was by them executed, probably at the stake. His three companions abjured their heresy, and on submitting to church discipline and wearing clothes marked with the sign of the cross, were pardoned. Cannemann then proceeded to Angermünde, where in the city and surrounding country crowds of such heretics resided; and there he succeeded without great difficulty in bringing them to abjure their errors and accept the Catholic confession.—The Waldensians in Bohemia and Moravia quite voluntarily amalgamated with the “United Brethren” there. The remnants of the German and Swiss Waldensians may have attached themselves to the Reformation of the 16th century, but probably for the most part to the Protestant sects of that age, some joining Schwenkfeld, and still more going with the Anabaptists, to whom they were essentially much more closely related than to Luther or Zwingli.—As to the ultimate fate of the Lombard Waldensians themselves, we know nothing. Probably many of them sought escape from the persecutions which raged against them among the French Waldensians in the valleys of Piedmont.§ 119.9A.The remnants of theFrench Waldensiansand their lay adherents down to the beginning of the 14th century had for the most part settled in the remote and little cultivated valleys on both sides of the Cottian Alps. This settlement, which bore the character of an assembly as well as that of an isolation, now rendered indispensable the organization of an independent congregational order, such as had never been attempted before. In the arrangements of this community, not only was the question of clerical rank simplified by the combination of the order of bishop ormajoraliswith that of the presbyter, to which combined office was given the honourable designation of “barbe,” uncle, and instead of the hitherto annual tenure of this office was introduced a life tenure, but also to the laity was assigned a share in the church government at their synod meetings. A bull of John XXII., ofA.D.1332, informs us that then in the Piedmontese valleysita creverunt et multiplicati sunt hæretici, præcipue de secta Waldensium, quod frequenter congregationes per modum capitali facere inibi præsumpserunt, in quibus aliquando 500 Valdenses fuerunt insimul congregati; yet certainly not merely clergy, as among the earlier congregations on the yearly tenure. The great, yea, extraordinarily great, number of the Waldensians in the Piedmontese valleys is proved by this, that from thence, sinceA.D.1340, flourishing colonies of Waldensians were transplanted into Calabria and Apulia with the connivance of the larger proprietors in those parts. Those who had settled on the western side, in the province of Dauphiné, succumbed completely inA.D.1545 to the oft repeated persecutions. The colonies of southern Italy, however, seem long to have led a quiet and little disturbed life under the protection of the territorial princes, until their adoption of Protestant views called down upon them the attention of the Inquisition, and led to their utter extermination inA.D.1561. On the other hand, the Waldensians of Piedmont, in spite of continuous oppression and frequently renewed persecution, maintained their existence down to the present day. When in the beginning of the 15th century their residence came under the sway of the Duke of Savoy, the persecutions began, and lasted down toA.D.1477, when a crusade for their extermination was summoned by Innocent VIII., which ended in the utter rout of the crusading army by Savoy and France. They had now a long period of repose, till their adoption of Protestant views in the 16th century anew awakened against them the horrors of persecution. In this time of rest brotherly intercourse was cultivated between the Waldensian groups and the Bohemian Brethren, who had hitherto maintained relations only with the German Waldensians.This movement originated with the Bohemians. Even at an earlier date, these, inspired by the wish to seek abroad what they could not obtain at home, namely, communion with a church free from Romish corruptions, had made a voyage of discovery in the east, which yielded no result. Now, inA.D.1497, they determined to make another similar search, under the leadership of Luke of Prague, in the primitive haunts of the Waldensians in France and Italy. The deputies went forth, beginning with the south of France, and the remnants of the French communities in their settlements among the Piedmontese Alps. More detailed reports of their intercourse with these no longer exist, but it cannot be doubted that there was a mutual interchange of religious writings. It is a question therefore that has been much discussed as to which party was the chief gainer by this interchange. But it can now be no longer questioned that the Waldensians, as those who were far less advanced in the direction of the evangelical reformation, learnt much from the Bohemians, and by transferring it into their own literature, secured it as their permanent property.§ 119.10.The Dutch Reformerssprang mostly from the Brothers of the Common Life (§112, 9).John Pupper of Gochin Cleves, prior of a cloister founded by him at Mecheln, diedA.D.1475. His works show him to have been a man of deep spirituality. Love, which leads to the true freedom of sons of God, is thematerial, the sole authority of Scripture is theformal, principle of his theology, which rests on a purely Augustinian foundation. He contends against the doctrine of righteousness by works, the meritoriousness of vows, etc.John Ruchrath of Wesel, professor in Erfurt, afterwards preacher at Mainz and Worms, died inA.D.1481. On the basis of a strictly Augustinian theology he opposed the papal systems of anathemas and indulgences, and preached powerfully salvation by Jesus Christ only. For the church doctrine of transubstantiation he substituted one of impanation. He spiritualized the doctrine of the church. Against the ecclesiastical injunction of fasts, he wroteDe jejunio; against indulgences,De indulgentiis; against the hierarchy,De potestate ecclesiastica. The Dominicans of Mainz accused and condemned him as a heretic inA.D.1479. The old man, bent down with age and sickness, was forced to recant, and to burn his writings, and was sentenced to imprisonment for life in a monastery.John Wesselof Gröningen was a scholar of the Brothers of the Common Life at Zwoll, where Thomas à Kempis exerted a powerful influence over him. He taught in Cologne, Lyons, Paris, and Heidelberg, and then retired to the cloister of Agnes Mount, near Zwoll, where he died inA.D.1489. His friends called himLux mundi. Scholastic dialectics, mystical depths, and rich classical culture were in him united with a clear and accurate knowledge of science. Luther says of him: “Had I read Wessel before, my enemies would have said, Luther has taken everything from Wessel, so thoroughly do our ideas agree.” His views are in harmony with Luther’s, especially in what he teaches of Holy Scripture, the universal priesthood of Christians, indulgence, repentance, faith, and justification. He taught that not only popes but even councils may err and have erred; excommunication has merely outward efficacy, indulgence has to do only with ecclesiastical penalties, and God alone can forgive sins; our justification rests on Christ’s righteousness and God’s free grace. Purgatory meant for him nothing more than the intermediate position between earthly imperfection and heavenly perfection, which is attained only through various stages. The protection of powerful friends saved him from the persecution of the Inquisition. Many of his works were destroyed by the diligence of the mendicant friars.The most important of his extant writings is theFarrago, a collection of short treatises.351The priest of Rostock,Nicholas Russ, in the end of the 15th century, deserves honourable mention alongside of these Dutchmen. Living in intimate relations with Bohemian Waldensians, he was subjected to many indignities, and died a fugitive in Livonia. He wrote in the Dutch language a tract against the hierarchy, indulgences, worship of saints and relics, etc., which was translated into German by Flacius. A copy of it was found in Rostock library inA.D.1850. It is entitled, “Of the Rope or of the Three Strings.” The rope that will raise man from the depths of his corruption must be made up of the three strings, faith, hope, and love. These three strings are described in succession, and so the book forms a complete compendium of Christian faith and life, with a sharp polemic against the debased church doctrine and morals of the age.§ 119.11.An Italian Reformer.—Jerome Savonarola, bornA.D.1452, monk and fromA.D.1481 prior of the Dominican cloister of San Marco in Florence, was fromA.D.1489 in high repute in that city as an eloquent and passionate preacher of repentance, with even reckless boldness declaiming against the depravity of clergy and laity, princes and people. With his whole soul a Dominican, and as such an enthusiastic admirer of Thomas, practising rigid self-discipline by fasts and flagellations, he was led by the study of Augustine and Scripture to a pure and profound knowledge of the evangelical doctrine of salvation, which he sought, not in the merits and intercession of the saints, nor in the performance of good works, but only in the grace of God and justification through faith in the crucified Saviour of sinners. But with this he combined a prophetic-apocalyptic theory, according to which he thought himself called and fitted by Divine inspiration, like the prophets of the Old Testament, to grapple with the political problems of the age. And, in fact, he made many a hardened sinner tremble by revealing contemplated secret sins, and many of his political prophecies seem to have been fulfilled with surprising accuracy. Thus he prophesied the death of Innocent VIII. inA.D.1492, and proclaimed the speedy overthrow of the house of the Medici in Florence, as well as the punishment of other Italian tyrants and the thorough reformation of the church by a foreign king crossing the Alps with a powerful army. And lo, in the following year, the king of France, Charles VIII., crossed the Alps to enforce his claims upon Naples and force from the pope recognition of the Basel reforms; the Medici were banished from Florence, and Naples unresistingly fell into the hands of the French. Thus the ascetic monk of San Marco became the man of the people, who now began with ruthless energy to carry out, not only moral and religious reformatory notions, but also his political ideal of a democratic kingdom of God. In vain did Alexander VI. seek by offer of a cardinal’s hat to win over the demagogical prophet and reformer; he only replied, “I desire no other red hat than that coloured by the blood of martyrdom.” In vain did the pope insist that he should appear before him at Rome; in vain did he forbid him the pulpit, from which he so powerfully moved the people. An attempt to restore the Medici also failed. At the carnival inA.D.1497 Savonarola proved the supremacy of his influence over the people by persuading them, instead of the usual buffoonery, to make a bonfire of the articles of luxury and vanity. But already the political movements were turning out unfavourably, and his utterances were beginning to lose their reputation as true prophecies. Charles VIII. had been compelled to quit Italy inA.D.1495, and Savonarola’s assurances of his speedy return were still unfulfilled. Popular favour vacillated, while the nobles and the libertine youth were roused to the utmost bitterness against him. The Franciscans, as members of a rival order, were his sworn enemies. The papal ban was pronounced against him inA.D.1497, and the city was put under the interdict. A monk of his cloister, Fra Domenico Pescia, offered to pass the ordeal of fire in behalf of his master, if any of his opponents would submit to the same trial. A Franciscan declared himself ready to do so, and all arrangements were made. But when Domenico insisted upon taking with him a consecrated host, the trial did not come off, to the great disappointment of a people devotedly fond of shows. A fanatical mob took the prophet prisoner. His bitterest enemies were his judges, who, after torture had extorted from him a confession of false prophecy most repugnant to his inmost convictions, condemned him to death by fire as a deceiver of the people and a heretic. On 23rd May,A.D.1498, he was, along with Domenico and another monk, hung upon a gallows and then burned. The believing joy with which he endured death deepened the reverence of an ever-increasing band of adherents, who proclaimed him saint and martyr. His portrait in the cell once occupied by him, painted by Fra Bartolomeo, surrounded with the halo of a saint, shows the veneration in which he was held by his generation and by his order. His numerous sermons represent to us his burning oratory. His chief work is hisTriumphus crucisofA.D.1497, an eloquent and thoughtful vindication of Christianity against the half pagan scepticism of the Renaissance, then dominant in Florence and at the court. An exposition of the 51st Psalm, written in prison and not completed, works out, with a clearness and precision never before attained, the doctrine of justification by faith.It was on this account republished by Luther inA.D.1523.352
§ 119.1.Wiclif and the Wiclifites.—In England the kings and the Parliament had for a long time withstood the oppressive yoke of the papal hierarchy. Men too like John of Salisbury, Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, and Thomas Bradwardine had raised their voices against the inner corruption of the church.John Wiclif, a scholar of Bradwardine, was born aboutA.D.1320. As fellow of the University of Oxford, he supported inA.D.1366 the English Crown against the payment of tribute to the papal court then at Avignon, admitted by John Lackland (§96, 18), of which payment had now for a long time been refused. This secured him court favour, the title of doctor, and a professorship of theology at Oxford; and inA.D.1374 he was chosen as member of a commission which was to discuss at Brügge in the Netherlands with the papal envoys the differences that had arisen about the appointing to ecclesiastical offices. After his return he openly spoke and wrote against the papal “antichrist” and his doctrines. Gregory XI. now, inA.D.1377, condemned nineteen propositions from his writings, but the English court protected him from the strict inquiry and punishment threatened. Meanwhile Wiclif was ever becoming bolder. Under his influence religious societies were formed which sent out travelling preachers of the gospel among the people. By their opponents they were called Lollards (§116, 3), a name to which the stigma of heresy was already attached. Wiclif translated for them the Scriptures from the Vulgate into English. The bitterness of his enemies now reached its height. Just then, inA.D.1381, a rebellion of the oppressed peasants that deluged all England with blood broke out. Its origin has been quite gratuitously assigned to the religious movement. When he had directly repudiated the doctrine of transubstantiation, a synod at London, inA.D.1382, condemned his writings and his doctrine as heretical, and the university also cast him out. Court and Parliament could only protect his person. He now retired to his rectory at Lutterworth in Leicestershire, where he died on 31st December, 1384.—For five centuries his able writings were left unprinted, to moulder away in the obscurity of libraries. His English works have now been edited by Matthews, London, 1880. Lechler of Leipzig edited Wiclif’s most complete and comprehensive work, the “Trialogus” (Oxford, 1869), in which his whole theological system is developed. Buddensieg of Dresden published the keen antipapal controversial tract, “De Christo et suo adversario Antichristo” (Leipzig, 1880). The Wiclif Society, instituted at the fifth centenary of Wiclif’s death for the purpose of issuing critical editions of his most important works, sent forth as their first performance Buddensieg’s edition of “twenty-six Latin controversial tracts of Wiclif’s from MSS. previously unprinted,” in 2 vols., London, 1883. Among Wiclif’s systematic treatises we are promised editions of theSumma theologiæ,De incarnatione Verbi,De veritate s. Scr.,De dominio divino,De ecclesia,De actibus animæ, etc., some by English, some by German editors.—As the principle of all theology and reformation Wiclif consistently affirms the sole authority of Divine revelation in the Holy Scriptures. He has hence been calleddoctor evangelicus. Anything that cannot be proved from it is a corrupting human invention. Consistently carrying out this principle, he denounced the worship of saints, relics, and images, the use of Latin in public worship, elaborate priestly choir singing, the multiplication of festivals, private masses, extreme unction, and generally all ceremonialism. The Catholic doctrine of indulgence and the sale of indulgences, as well as the ban and the interdict, he pronounced blasphemous; auricular confession he regarded as a forcing of conscience; the power of the keys he explained as conditional, its binding and loosing powerless, except when in accordance with the judgment of Christ. He denied the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, and affirmed, like Berengar, a spiritual communication thereof, which however he makes dependent, not only on the faith of the receiver, but also on the worthiness of the officiating priest. The doctrine of purgatory he completely rejected, and supported Augustine’s predestinationism against the prevalent semipelagianism. The papacy was antichrist; the pope has his power only from the emperor, not from God. The hierarchical system should be replaced by the apostolic presbyterial constitution. Ordination confers no indelible character; a priest who has fallen into mortal sin cannot dispense the sacrament. Every believer is as such a priest. The State is a representation of Christ, as the God-Man ruler of the universe; the clergy represent only the poor and suffering life of His humanity. Monkery is contrary to nature, etc.—Wiclif’s supporters, many of them belonging to the noblest and most cultured orders, were after his death subjected to violent persecution, which reached its height when the House of Lancaster in the person of Henry IV. ascended the English throne inA.D.1399. An act of parliament was passed inA.D.1400 which made death by fire the punishment of the heresy of the Lollards. Among the martyrs which this law brought to the stake was the noble Sir John Oldcastle, who inA.D.1418 was hung up between two beams in iron chains over a fire and there slowly burnt.The Council of Constance inA.D.1415 condemned forty-five propositions from Wiclif’s writings, and ordered his bones to be exhumed and scattered abroad. Many germs sown by him continued until the Reformation came.348
§ 119.2.Precursors of the Hussite Movement.—Owing to its Greek origin (§ 79, 2, 3), the Bohemian church had a certain character of its own and barely tolerated the Roman constitution and ritual. In Bohemia too the Waldensians had numerous supporters during the 13th century. And even before the appearance of Huss three distinguished clergymen in and around Prague by earnest preaching and pastoral work had awakened in many a consciousness of crying abuses in the church.
§ 119.3.John Huss of Hussineczin Bohemia, bornA.D.1369, was Bachelor of Theology at Prague, inA.D.1394, Master of Liberal Arts inA.D.1396, became public teacher in the university inA.D.1398, was ordained priest inA.D.1400, undertook a pastorate inA.D.1402 in the Bethlehem chapel, where he had to preach in the Bohemian language, was chosen confessor of Queen Sophia inA.D.1403, and was soon afterwards made synodal preacher by the new archbishop, Sbynko of Hasenburg. Till then he had in pious humility accepted all the doctrines of the Romish Church, and even inA.D.1392 he offered his last four groschen for an indulgence, so that for a long time dry bread was his only nourishment. But aboutA.D.1402 he reached an important crisis in his life through the study of Wiclif’s theological works.—Bohemians who had studied in Oxford brought with them Wiclif’s philosophical works, and inA.D.1348 the discussion on realism and nominalism broke out in Prague. The Bohemians generally sided with Wiclif for realism; the Germans with the nominalists (§113, 3). This helped to prepare an entrance for Wiclif’s theological writings into Bohemia. Of the national party which favoured Wiclif’s philosophy and theology, Huss was soon recognised as a leader. A university decree ofA.D.1403 condemned forty-five propositions from Wiclif’s works as heretical, and forbade their promulgation in lectures or sermons. Huss however was still highly esteemed by Archbishop Sbynko. InA.D.1405 he appointed Huss, with other three scholars, a commission to investigate a reputed miracle at Wilsnack, where on the altar of a ruined church three blood-red coloured hosts were said to have been found. Huss pronounced the miracle a cheat, and proved in a tract that the blood of Christ glorified can only be invisibly present in the sacrament of the altar. The archbishop approved this tract, and forbade all pilgrimages to the spot. He also took no offence at Huss for uttering Wiclifite doctrine in his synod sermon. Only when, inA.D.1408, the clergy of his diocese complained that Huss by his preaching made the priests contemptible before the people, did he deprive him of his function as synod preacher. When the majority of cardinals at Leghorn inA.D.1408 took steps to put an end to the schism, king Wenzel determined to remain neutral, and demanded the assent of the university as well as the clergy of his realm. But only the Bohemian members of the university agreed, while the rest, along with the archbishop, supported Gregory XII. Sbynko keenly resented the revolt of the Bohemians, and forbade Huss as their spokesman to preach within his diocese. Huss paid no attention to the prohibition, but secured a royal injunction, that henceforth in the university Bohemians should have three votes and foreigners only one. The foreigners then withdrew, and founded the University of Leipzig inA.D.1409.Huss was made first rector of the newly organized University of Prague; but the very fact of his great popularity in Bohemia caused him to be profoundly hated in other lands.349
§ 119.4. The archbishop escaped prosecution only by unreservedly condemning the doctrines of Wiclif, burning his books, and prohibiting all lectures upon them. Huss and his friends appealed to John XXIII., but this did not prevent the archbishop burning in his palace yard about two hundred Wiclifite books that had previously escaped his search. For this he was hooted in the streets, and compelled by the courts of law to pay the value of the books destroyed. John XXIII. cited Huss to appear at Rome. King, nobles, magistrates, and university sided with him; but the papal commission condemned him when he did not appear, and the archbishop pronounced anathema against him and the interdict against Prague (A.D.1411). Huss appealed to the œcumenical council, and continued to preach. The court forced the archbishop to become reconciled with Huss, and to admit his orthodoxy. Sbynko reported to the pope that Bohemia was free from heresy. He soon afterwards died. The pope himself was the cause of a complete breach, by having an indulgence preached in Bohemia inA.D.1412 for a crusade against Ladislaus of Naples, the powerful adherent of Gregory XII. Huss opposed this by word and writing, and in a public disputation maintained that the pope had no right to grant such indulgence. His most stanch supporter was a Bohemian knight, Jerome of Prague, who had studied at Oxford, and returned inA.D.1402 an enthusiastic adherent of Wiclif’s doctrines. Their addresses produced an immense impression, and two days later their disorderly followers, to throw contempt on the papal party, had the bull of indulgence paraded through the streets, on the breast of a public prostitute, representing the whore of Babylon, and then cast into the flames. But many old friends now withdrew from Huss and joined his opponents. The papal curia thundered against him and his followers the great excommunication, with its terrible curses. Wherever he resided that place was put under interdict. But Huss appealed to the one righteous Judge, Jesus Christ. At the wish of the king he left the city, and sought the protection of various noble patrons, from whose castles he went forth diligently preaching round about. He spread his views all over the country by controversial and doctrinal treatises in Latin and Bohemian, as well as by an extensive correspondence with his friends and followers. Thus the trouble and turmoil grew from day to day, and all the king’s efforts to restore peace were in vain.
§ 119.5. The Roman emperor Sigismund summoned Huss to attend the Council of Constance (§110, 7), and promised him a safe-conduct. Though not yet in possession of this latter, which he only got at Constance, trusting to the righteousness of his cause, for which he was quite willing to die a martyr’s death, he started for Constance on 11th October,A.D.1414, reaching his destination on 3rd November. On 28th November he was sentenced to imprisonment at a private conference of the cardinals, on the pretended charge of an attempt at flight, first in the Dominican cloister, then in the bishop’s castle of Gottlieben, where he was put in chains, finally in the Franciscan cloister. Sigismund, who had not been forewarned when he was cast into prison, ordered his release; but the council convinced him that Huss, arraigned as a heretic before a general council, was beyond the reach of civil protection. His bitterest enemies and accusers were two Bohemians, Michael of Deutschbrod and Stephan of Palecz. The latter extracted forty-two points for accusations from his writings, which Huss from his prison retracted. D’Ailly and Gerson were both against him. The brave knight John of Chlum stood faithfully by him as a comforter to the last. For almost seven months was he harassed by private examinations, in which, notwithstanding his decided repudiation of many of them, he was charged with all imaginable Wiclifite heresies. The result was the renewed condemnation of those forty-five propositions from Wiclif’s writings, which had been condemnedA.D.1408 by the University of Prague. At last, on 5th June,A.D.1415, he was for the first time granted a public trial, but the tumult at the sitting was so great that he was prevented from saying a single word. Even on the two following days of the trial he could do little more than make a vain protest against being falsely charged with errors, and declare his willingness to be better instructed from God’s word. The humility and gentleness of his demeanour, as well as the enthusiasm and believing joyfulness which he displayed, won for him many hearts even outside of the council. All possible motives were urged to induce him to submit. Sigismund so exhorted him, with the threat that if he did not he would withdraw his protection. The third and last day of trial was 8th June,A.D.1415, and judgment was pronounced in the cathedral church on the 6th July. After high mass had been celebrated, a bishop mounted the pulpit and preached on Romans vi. 6. He addressed Sigismund, who was present, “By destroying this heretic, thou shalt obtain an undying name to all ensuing generations.” Once again called upon to recant, Huss repeated his previous protests, appealed to the promise of a safe-conduct, which made Sigismund wince and blush, and kneeling down prayed to God for his enemies and unjust judges. Then seven bishops dressed him in priestly robes in order to strip him of them one after another amid solemn execrations. Then they put on him a high pyramidal hat, painted with figures of devils, and bearing the inscription,Hæresiarcha, and uttered the words, “We give thy soul to the devil.” He replied: “I commend it into the hands of our Saviour Jesus Christ.” On that same day he was given over by Sigismund to Louis Count-palatine of the Rhine, and by him to the Constance magistrates, and led to the stake. Amid prayer and praise he expired, joyfully, courageously, and confidently, showing himself worthy to rank among the martyrs who in the best times of Christianity had sealed their Christian confession with their blood. His ashes were scattered on the Rhine. The later Hussites, in accordance with an old Christian custom (§ 39, 5), celebrated the day of his death as thedies natalisof the holy martyr John Huss.—Jerome of Praguehad gone unasked to Constance. When he saw that his longer stay would not help his friend, but only involve himself in his fate, he left the city; but was seized on the way, and taken back in chains in April,A.D.1415. During a severe half-year’s imprisonment, and wearied with the importunities of his judges, he agreed to recant, and to acquiesce in the sentence of Huss. But he was not trusted, and after as before his recantation he was kept in close confinement. Then his courage revived. He demanded a public trial before the whole council, which was at last granted him in May,A.D.1416. There he solemnly and formally retracted his previous retractation with a believer’s confidence and a martyr’s joy. On May 30th,A.D.1416, he, too, died at the stake, joyfully and courageously as Huss had done. The Florentine humanist Poggio, who was present, has given enthusiastic expression in a still extant letter to his admiration at the heroic spirit of the martyr.
§ 119.6. In all his departures from Romish doctrine Huss was dependent upon Wiclif, not only for the matter, but even for the modes of expression. He did not however separate himself quite so far from the Church doctrines as his English master. He firmly maintained the doctrine of transubstantiation; he was also inclined to withhold the cup from the laity; and, though he sought salvation only from the Saviour crucified for us, he did not refuse to give any place to works in the justification of the sinner, and even invocation of the saints he did not wholly condemn. While he energetically protested against the corruption of the clergy, he never denied that the sacrament might be efficaciously administered by an unworthy priest. In everything else however he was in thorough agreement with the English reformer. The most complete exposition of his doctrine is found in theTractatus de ecclesiaofA.D.1413. Augustine’s doctrine of predestination is its foundation. He distinguishes from the church as a visible human institution the idea of the church as the true body of Christ, embracing all elected in Christ to blessedness from eternity. Its one and only head is Christ: not Peter, not the pope; for this church is no monster with two heads. Originally and according to Christ’s appointment the bishop of Rome was no more than the other bishops. The donation of Constantine first gave him power and dignity over the rest. As the church in the beginning could exist without a pope, so the church unto the end can exist without one. The Christian can obey the pope only where his commands and doctrines agree with those of Christ. In matters of faith Holy Scripture is the only authority. Fathers, councils, and popes may err, and have erred; only the word of God is infallible.—That this liberal reforming Council of Constance, with a Gerson at its head, should have sentenced such a man to death is not to be wondered at when we rightly consider how matters stood. His hateful realism seemed to the nominalistic fathers of the council the source of all conceivable heresies. It had even been maintained that realism consistently carried out would give a fourth person to the Godhead. His devotion to the national interests of Bohemia in the University of Prague had excited German national feeling against him. And, further, the council, which was concerned only with outward reforms, had little sympathy with the evangelical tone of his spirit and doctrine. Besides this, Huss had placed himself between the swords of two contending parties. The hierarchical party wished, in order to strike terror into their opponents, to show by an example that the church had still the power to burn heretics; and the liberal party refused to this object of papal hate all protection, lest they should endanger the cause of reformation by incurring a suspicion of sympathy with heresy.—The prophecy said to have been uttered by Huss in his last moments, “To-day you burn a goose (this being the meaning of Huss in Slavonian), but from its ashes will arise a swan (Luther’s coat of arms), which you will not be able to burn,” was unknown to his contemporaries. Probably it originated in the Reformation age from the appeals of both martyrs to the judgment of God and history.Huss had often declared that instead of the weak goose there would come powerful eagles and falcons.350
§ 119.7.Calixtines and Taborites.—During the imprisonment of their leader the Hussite party was headed by Jacob of Misa, pastor of St. Michael’s church in Prague. With consent of Huss he introduced the use of the cup by the laity and rejected thejejunium eucharisticumas opposed to Matthew xxvi. 26. This led to an interchange of controversial tracts between Prague and Constance on the withholding of the cup. The council decreed that whoever disobeys the Church on this point is to be punished as a heretic. This decree, followed by the execution of Huss, roused Bohemia to the uttermost. King Wenceslaw died inA.D.1419 in the midst of national excitement, and the estates refused to crown his brother Sigismund, “the word-breaker.” Now arose a civil war,A.D.1420-1436, characterized by cruelties on both sides rarely equalled. At the head of the Hussites, who had built on the brow of a steep hill the strong fortress Tabor, was the one-eyed, afterwards blind,John Ziska of Trocznov. The crusading armies sent against the Hussites were one after another destroyed; but the gentle spirit of Huss had no place among most of his followers. The two parties became more and more embittered toward one another. The aristocraticCalixtines(calix, cup) or Utraquists (sub utraque), at whose head was Bishop Rokycana of Prague, declared that they would be satisfied if the Catholic church would concede to them four articles:
On the other hand, theTaboriteswould have no reconciliation with the Romish church, regarding as fundamentally corrupt in doctrine and worship whatever is not found in Scripture, and passing over into violent fanaticism, iconoclasm, etc. After Ziska’s death of the plague inA.D.1424, the majority of the Taborites elected Procopius the Great as his successor. A small party that regarded no man worthy of succeeding the great Ziska, refused him allegiance, and styled themselves Orphans. They were the most fanatical of all.—Meanwhile the Council of Basel had met (§110, 8) and after long fruitless negotiations it was resolved inA.D.1433 that 300 Hussite deputies should appear at Basel. After a fifty days’ disputation the four Calixtine articles with certain modifications were accepted by the council. On the basis of thisBasel Compactthe Calixtines returned to the Romish church. The Taborites regarded this as shameful treason to the cause of truth, and continued the conflict. But inA.D.1434 they were utterly annihilated at Böhmischbrod, not far from Prague. In the Treaty of Iglau inA.D.1436 Sigismund swore to observe the compact, and was recognised as king. But the concessions sworn to by church and state were more and more restricted and ultimately ignored. Sigismund died inA.D.1437. In place of his son-in-law, Albert II., the Utraquists set up a rival king in the person of the thirteen year old Polish prince Casimir; but Albert died inA.D.1439. His son, Ladislaus, born after his father’s death, had, in George Podiebrad, a Calixtine tutor. After he had grown up inA.D.1453, he walked in his grandfather’s footsteps, and died inA.D.1457. The Calixtines now elected Podiebrad king, as a firm supporter of the compact. Pius II. recognised him in the hope that he would aid him in his projected war against the Turks. When this hope was disappointed he cancelled the compact, inA.D.1462. Paul II. put the king under him, and had a crusade preached against him. Podiebrad however still held his ground. He died inA.D.1471. His successor, Wladislaw II., a Polish prince, though a zealous Catholic, was obliged to confirm anew to the Calixtines at the Diet of Cuttenberg, inA.D.1485, all their rights and liberties. Yet they could not maintain themselves as an independent community. Those of them who did not join the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren gradually during the 16th century became thoroughly amalgamated with the Catholic church.
§ 119.8.The Bohemian and Moravian Brethren.—George Podiebrad took Tabor inA.D.1453, and scattered the last remnants of the Taborites. Joining with the evangelical Friends of God, they received from the king a castle, where, under the leadership of the local pastor, Michael of Bradacz, they formed aUnitas fratrum, and called themselves Bohemian and Moravian Brethren. But inA.D.1461 Podiebrad withdrew his favour, and confiscated their goods. They fled into the woods, and met for worship in caves. InA.D.1467 the most distinguished of the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren met in a Bohemian village, Shota, with the German Waldensians, and chose three brethren by lot as priests, who were ordained by Michael and a Waldensian priest. But when the validity of their ordination was disputed, Michael went to the Waldensian bishop Stephen, got from him episcopal consecration, and then again ordained the three chosen at Shota, one, Matthias of Conewald, as bishop, the other two as priests. This led Rokycana to persecute them all the more bitterly. They increased their numbers however, by receiving the remnants of the Waldensians and many Utraquists, until by the beginning of the 16th century they had four hundred congregations in Bohemia and Moravia. Under Wladislaw II. persecution was stopped fromA.D.1475, but was renewed with great violence inA.D.1503. They sent inA.D.1511 a confession of faith to Erasmus (§120, 6), with the request that he would give his opinion about it; which he however, fearing to be compromised thereby, declined to do. After the death of Bishop Matthias, inA.D.1500, a dislike of monarchy led to the appointment of fourSeniorsinstead of one bishop, two for Bohemia and two for Moravia. The most important and influential of these was Luke of Prague, who died inA.D.1518, rightly regarded as the second founder of the union. He impressed a character upon the brotherhood essentially distinct in respect of constitution and doctrine from the Lutheran Reformation.—Continuation §139, 19.
§ 119.9.The Waldensians.
§ 119.9A.
§ 119.10.The Dutch Reformerssprang mostly from the Brothers of the Common Life (§112, 9).
§ 119.11.An Italian Reformer.—Jerome Savonarola, bornA.D.1452, monk and fromA.D.1481 prior of the Dominican cloister of San Marco in Florence, was fromA.D.1489 in high repute in that city as an eloquent and passionate preacher of repentance, with even reckless boldness declaiming against the depravity of clergy and laity, princes and people. With his whole soul a Dominican, and as such an enthusiastic admirer of Thomas, practising rigid self-discipline by fasts and flagellations, he was led by the study of Augustine and Scripture to a pure and profound knowledge of the evangelical doctrine of salvation, which he sought, not in the merits and intercession of the saints, nor in the performance of good works, but only in the grace of God and justification through faith in the crucified Saviour of sinners. But with this he combined a prophetic-apocalyptic theory, according to which he thought himself called and fitted by Divine inspiration, like the prophets of the Old Testament, to grapple with the political problems of the age. And, in fact, he made many a hardened sinner tremble by revealing contemplated secret sins, and many of his political prophecies seem to have been fulfilled with surprising accuracy. Thus he prophesied the death of Innocent VIII. inA.D.1492, and proclaimed the speedy overthrow of the house of the Medici in Florence, as well as the punishment of other Italian tyrants and the thorough reformation of the church by a foreign king crossing the Alps with a powerful army. And lo, in the following year, the king of France, Charles VIII., crossed the Alps to enforce his claims upon Naples and force from the pope recognition of the Basel reforms; the Medici were banished from Florence, and Naples unresistingly fell into the hands of the French. Thus the ascetic monk of San Marco became the man of the people, who now began with ruthless energy to carry out, not only moral and religious reformatory notions, but also his political ideal of a democratic kingdom of God. In vain did Alexander VI. seek by offer of a cardinal’s hat to win over the demagogical prophet and reformer; he only replied, “I desire no other red hat than that coloured by the blood of martyrdom.” In vain did the pope insist that he should appear before him at Rome; in vain did he forbid him the pulpit, from which he so powerfully moved the people. An attempt to restore the Medici also failed. At the carnival inA.D.1497 Savonarola proved the supremacy of his influence over the people by persuading them, instead of the usual buffoonery, to make a bonfire of the articles of luxury and vanity. But already the political movements were turning out unfavourably, and his utterances were beginning to lose their reputation as true prophecies. Charles VIII. had been compelled to quit Italy inA.D.1495, and Savonarola’s assurances of his speedy return were still unfulfilled. Popular favour vacillated, while the nobles and the libertine youth were roused to the utmost bitterness against him. The Franciscans, as members of a rival order, were his sworn enemies. The papal ban was pronounced against him inA.D.1497, and the city was put under the interdict. A monk of his cloister, Fra Domenico Pescia, offered to pass the ordeal of fire in behalf of his master, if any of his opponents would submit to the same trial. A Franciscan declared himself ready to do so, and all arrangements were made. But when Domenico insisted upon taking with him a consecrated host, the trial did not come off, to the great disappointment of a people devotedly fond of shows. A fanatical mob took the prophet prisoner. His bitterest enemies were his judges, who, after torture had extorted from him a confession of false prophecy most repugnant to his inmost convictions, condemned him to death by fire as a deceiver of the people and a heretic. On 23rd May,A.D.1498, he was, along with Domenico and another monk, hung upon a gallows and then burned. The believing joy with which he endured death deepened the reverence of an ever-increasing band of adherents, who proclaimed him saint and martyr. His portrait in the cell once occupied by him, painted by Fra Bartolomeo, surrounded with the halo of a saint, shows the veneration in which he was held by his generation and by his order. His numerous sermons represent to us his burning oratory. His chief work is hisTriumphus crucisofA.D.1497, an eloquent and thoughtful vindication of Christianity against the half pagan scepticism of the Renaissance, then dominant in Florence and at the court. An exposition of the 51st Psalm, written in prison and not completed, works out, with a clearness and precision never before attained, the doctrine of justification by faith.It was on this account republished by Luther inA.D.1523.352