often as thy tongue sounds the praises of God, so often thy life blasphemes." How, then, shall the avaricious, simoniacs, the self-indulgent and those guilty of other crimes think in goodness of heart about the Lord or about his sacraments when they, like infidels, despise the Lord's name, defile his bread, crucify to themselves the Son of God and put him to an open shame, deal wickedly with God's law and despise government and blaspheme?
It is also clear that to this class belong the pestiferous clergy who, in an infidel way, think of the seven sacraments of the church and of the keys and of other things belonging to Christ's law. It is also clear that the dictum of the doctors—whose leader at that time was Stephen Palecz, supported by Stanislaus, who led after them Peter of Znaim, John Helie, Andrew Broda, John Hildissen, Matthew the Monk, Herman the Hermit, George Boras, and Simon Vuenda—laid down as a statement of the matter of disagreement, is to be verified by the conduct of the clergy who were living in sin.[1] For, in the beginning of their writing, they say: "The matter of this disagreement is manifest from the lives of some of the clergy who are pestiferous." Because Christ's
- ↑ The document referred to (Doc., 475 sqq.) was signed by eight doctors of the theological faculty of the university of Prague against the XLV Articles of Wyclif and seven other articles alleged to give Huss's views, such as that the priest does no more than announce the forgiveness of sins in the sacrament of penance. It was an attack upon Huss for the hostile position he had assumed to the sale of indulgences ordered by John XXIII, 1411. The disturbances which followed in Prague led the king, Wenzel, to call the eight magisters and Huss before him at his summer residence of Zebrak. There, after a meeting in the parish house at which Palecz read a paper charging Huss with disobedience to the university authorities, they appeared before the king. Huss offered to submit himself to the ordeal of fire provided that the others did and that the party not proving its case from Scripture should undergo it. The proposition was not accepted, the meeting seems to have come to naught, and the disturbances in Prague went on, and the three men were murdered to whom reference is made in a succeeding chapter. Huss made an elaborate Reply to the Eight Doctors, Mon., 1: 366–408, in which he goes into the scriptural authority limiting the papal power of indulgence and the priestly power of remission of sins. The eight doctors included the names given above with the exception of Boras and Vuenda. See ad Stanisl., Mon., 1: 331.
