Italian humanist,[1] who in spite of his official position could have had but little interest in the subtilities of the theological discussions of his age. Poggio Bracciolini tells us that "none of the Stoics with so constant and brave a soul endured death, which indeed he (Jerome) rather seemed to long for … Mutius did not allow his hand to be burnt with more brave a mind than this man his whole body. Socrates did not drink the poison as willingly as this man submitted himself to the flames."[2]
After Hus's departure from Bohemia, the movement against papacy in that country by no means declined, but rather assumed greater dimensions. Towards the end of the year 1414, one of the most prominent magisters of the University of Prague, Jacobellus of Střibro, first publicly preached the doctrine that, according to Scripture, the sacrament should be received in both kinds by laymen as well as by priests. Jacobellus and his friends at this time also began to dispense communion in the two kinds. This was first done at Prague in the churches of St. Michael, St. Martin-in-the-Wall, and the Bethlehem chapel. This practice—concerning which Hus was consulted, and to which he gave his approval—soon became the characteristic article of faith to which all the friends of Church reform in Bohemia adhered. The chalice indeed became their emblem, and the nobles opposed to the Pope were known as the lords "sub utraque," whence was derived the word utraquist, which, till the suppression of religious freedom in Bohemia after the battle of the White Mountain (1620), designated one of the parties in the country.
- ↑ "The independence of mind with which this learned member of the papal curia (Poggio Bracciolini) dared to admire the heroism of … (Jerome) and proclaim him worthy of immortality is truly remarkable. But what was it he admired in him? Not the martyr, not the reformer—on the contrary, he asserts that if Jerome had indeed said anything against the Catholic faith he would have deserved his punishment. What he admired in him was the courage of a Cato or a Mutius Scaevola; he extolled his clear, sweet, and sonorous voice, the nobility of his gestures, so well adapted either to express indignation or excite compassion; the eloquence and learning with which at the foot of the pile he quoted Socrates, Anaxagoras, Plato, and the Fathers" (Prof. Villari, Life of Machiavelli).
- ↑ Poggii Florentini de Hieronymi Heretici Supplicio Narratio Lionardo Aretino (first [?] printed by Von der Hardt, Magnum Concilium Oecumenicum; then with the Historia Bohemica of Aenaeas Sylvius in Freherus Scriptores Rerum Bohemicarum, and elsewhere).
