DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP ZBINEK
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admonish him once or twice according to the apostle’s precept, and if he will not receive the admonition, then you may reject him as a heretic,[1] the more so as you are a master and doctor of the law able, nay bound, to occupy your master’s chair for the public defence of the truth.
I write these words by way of brotherly advice according to Christ’s precept: If thy brother shall offend against thee, rebuke him between thee and him.[2] Therefore, brother, receive me; and if you have spoken in this way about me, say so in your reply. If you prove me a heretic, I will humbly make amends and you will receive the reward of restoring a sinner from the error of his way.[3] Yet by the grace of God Almighty I hope I hold the same faith in the Lord Jesus as yourself and as truly, seeing that I am ready to suffer death on its behalf in humility and hope.
With the expulsion of the Germans and the loss of the national struggle, events at Prague moved rapidly towards a religious crisis. ‘Immediately after,’ we read, ‘Wiclify began to grow strong, and
Hus and his adherents renounced their spiritual obedience under the favour of the laity.’ All that Zbinek could do was to persuade the Bohemian nation in the University to severely restrict the right of lecturing on
Wyclif, or defending his propositions. The Wyclifists retorted—Hus himself did not join them—by procuring the citation of the Archbishop before the Pisan Curia. Zbinek, realising his isolation by the expulsion of his German allies, deemed it well to abandon Gregory, and make his peace with Alexander V. This he did on September 2, amid universal rejoicing, blaring of trumpets ‘to the fourth hour of night,’ ‘six hundred bonfires,’ and the like. Thus
