By this time he was recognized as the leader in the effort to purify the Church, and to reduce it to its ancient simplicity, with such men as Stephen Palecz, Stanislas of Znaim, John of Jessinetz, Je- rome of Prague, and many others eminent for learning and piety as his collaborators. To some of these he was inferior in intel- lectual gifts, but his fearless temper, his unbending rectitude, his blameless life, and his kindly nature won for him the affectionate veneration of the people and rendered him its idol.[1]
Discussion grew hot and passions became embittered. Old jealousies and hatreds between the Teutonic and Czech races con- tributed to render the religious quarrel unappeasable. The vices and oppression of the clergy had alienated from them popular respect, and the fiery diatribes of the Bethlehem chapel were lis- tened to eagerly, while the Wickliffite doctrines, which taught the baselessness of the whole sacerdotal system, were welcomed as a revelation, and spread rapidly through all classes. King Wen- ceslas was inclined to give them such support as his indolence and self-indulgence would permit, and his queen, Sophia, was even more favorably disposed. Yet the clergy and their friends could not submit quietly to the spoliation of their privileges and wealth, although the Great Schism, in weakening the influence of the Ro- man curia, rendered its support less efficient. Preachers who assailed their vices were thrown into prison as heretics and were exiled, and the writings of Wickliff, which formed the key of the position, were fiercely assaulted and desperately defended. The weak point in them was the substitution of remanence for tran- substantiation; and although this was discarded by Huss and his followers, it served as an unguarded point through which the whole position might be carried. The synod of 1405 asserted the doctrine of transubstantiation in its most absolute shape; any one teaching otherwise was pronounced a heretic, and was ordered to be reported to the archbishop for punishment. In 1406 this was
- ↑ Loserth, op. cit. pp. 13, 75–8, 98-100.-Jo. Hus Monument. II. 25–52. Even Æneas Sylvius (Hist. Bohem. c. 35) speaks of Huss as distinguished for the purity of his life; and the Jesuit Balbinus says that his austerity and modesty, his kindness to all, even to the meanest, won for him universal favor. No one believed that so holy a man could deceive or be deceived, so that the memory of the thief was worshipped at Prague as that of a saint (Bohuslai Balbini Epit. Rer. Bohem. Lib. v. c. v. p. 431).
