Certainly I confide in this expounder, so far as this opinion goes, more than in all the aforesaid doctors. For Lyra aptly draws from Scripture (1) that the opinion of no man, whatever his authority may be—and consequently the opinion of no pope—is to be held if it plainly contains falsehood or error. It seems to me to be certain that Palecz and Stanislaus are so afraid of the pope and the cardinals that they would not dare publicly to avow this holy saying. (2) Lyra declares that God's law is the standard according to which individual judges and especially ecclesiastical judges ought to pronounce sentence and not otherwise. For this law shows what ought to be accepted as true. Hence he says that this appears from the words: "They shall pronounce for thee a sentence of truth." And the words follow: "They shall teach thee according to His law." O doctors, why do you not hold to this Scripture? You were asked and for God's sake publicly besought in the convocation of the university to pronounce a sentence of truth according to God's law, whether the bulls for the raising of the cross obligated the scholars of the university to give of the goods collected by God subsidies to the pope against Ladislaus and against his allies at the pope's command.[1] And you responded that you did not
- ↑ Ladislaus, king of Naples, by occupying the city of Rome, called forth against himself the severest papal censures from John XXIII. John's two bulls calling for a crusade against the refractory prince promised full forgiveness from "guilt and punishment" to all who went to the holy war or helped others to go. Three places were set up in Prague where the pardons were sold. Huss lifted his voice and used his pen against the crusade as Wyclif had done against the crusade preached by Henry de Spenser. Palecz and seven other members of the theological faculty of the university, that is, the Eight Doctors, took sides against Huss and defended John's bulls. Huss took the ground that the pope has no right to forgive sins unless he surely knows that God in these cases has forgiven, that the pope does no more than announce God's decisions, and that, instead of calling upon Christians to make war against Christians, he ought to imitate Christ, who did not call down fire upon his enemies, and with tears and prayers seek to overcome opposition to the church. Huss, in his Reply to Palecz, Mon., 1: 330, says that Palecz was at first opposed to
comment on all the books of the Bible. He was much used by the Reformers, especially Luther, so that it was said: "If Lyra had not harped, Luther would not have danced." Lyra quotes Raschi at length on the O. T.
