ing they come into the pope's presence clad in the most splendid apparel, and attended with the most sumptuous retinue of horsemen—thus attended, not on account of the distance of place or difficulty of the journey but to show their magnificence to the world and their contrariety to Christ and his apostles, who went about among the towns, cities, and castles clad in humble garb, on foot, preaching—evangelizando—the kingdom of God.[1]
Nor in this are they the true and manifest vicars of Christ that they permit themselves to be adored of men on bended knee or that they surround the pope with visitors from abroad, that while he sits on high, splendidly apparelled even down to his feet, yea and far beyond his chair, they with bended knee humbly seek the kisses of his blessed feet, as if the sanctity of this father, the pope, would descend even to the place where his foot is planted? But do they, themselves weak, receive from those feet health? For Christ suffered his feet to be kissed by a woman, but did not protrude them, as appears in Luke 7, because sincere contrition and the care and washing of Christ's feet, that is, of the poor, deletes the sins of pilgrims. But that kiss profits no part [of the body] unto salvation. For, he who kisses, moved by guilty greed or fear or flattery, or deceived by blind devotion, will be altogether chargeable with guilt, he bending his knees and approaching the pope's feet[2] more solicitously and reverentially than he would do before the sacrament
- ↑ In his Postilla, Doc., 729 Huss said: "Jesus went about preaching on foot, and did not drive about in a splendid carriage as nowadays our priests drive. I, alas, also drive about . . . and I do not know whether it will be a sufficient excuse in the future that I have not been able to cover the long distances on foot and with sufficient speed."
- ↑ The emperor Caligula seems to have been the first Roman emperor to introduce the custom of kissing the foot from the East. The pope wears a red slipper, but when the custom of kissing his feet entered is not known. In the Address to the German Nobility Luther denounced the custom whereby 'a poor sinful man suffers his foot to be kissed by one who may be a hundred times better than he.' In chapter XXI Huss again refers to the custom of adoring the pope.
