Page:Letters of John Huss Written During His Exile and Imprisonment.djvu/42

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Huss denied that these words could be found to form part of the chapter alluded to; and Zacharias offered to prove the contrary, from the very Bible which John Huss had brought from Bohemia: for Zacharias, like many others, had often visited Huss for the purpose of convincing him, and he had by chance happened to perceive the passage in question. The Bible was then produced in the assembly, and it shewed that Zacharias was right. John Huss, nevertheless, maintained that the Bible was not a correct one, and that the other versions would not confirm it; but being overwhelmed by the clamours of his adversaries, he lost his cause, and Zacharias received a rose from the Council, in perpetual memory of this fact. And yet,” observed Prolès, “it is certain that these words are not found in any correct Bible, whether manuscript or printed, and that they all testify against Zacharias.” Such was the account of Prolès to Dr Staupitz.

The verse alluded to is found in all German, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew Bibles, as it was quoted by John Huss; but at Constance they could not admit it in any other way than as quoted by Zacharias, who deserved neither to receive the rose nor to wear it.

The adversaries of John Huss’s opinions have them-

    pastors. The argument of Zacharias cannot have any weight except with those who absolutely behold God in the pope, and who imagine that all that is said of the Eternal in the Scriptures is applicable to the pope.