CHAPTER XXII
EXCOMMUNICATIONS, JUST AND UNJUST
Finally, the doctors lay down in their writing the following: "At length, because the processes [court proceedings before the curia and the archbishop of Prague] against Master John Huss have been received by the body of the clergy in Prague, and they have obeyed them, therefore these processes are to be obeyed, and especially since therein nothing absolutely good is prohibited nor is anything absolutely evil enjoined.[1] But according to the method of the church customary with the Roman curia and observed before the fathers of our fathers, only things intermediate—things between what is purely good and purely evil—are there commanded, which in respect to time, place, or mode may be either good or bad—and obedience is to be rendered in these things intermediate in accordance with the teachings of the Gospel and in accordance with St. Bernard." And they add: "And it is not the business of the clergy in Prague to pronounce judgment on the question whether the excommunication of Master John Huss is just or unjust." etc.
I will proceed to the things in the processes [court proceedings] about which for the present I chiefly consider three matters, namely, excommunication, suspension and interdict. And about these I will speak briefly, discussing first of all this, that the conclusion which the doctors draw is exceedingly bad, namely, "because the processes against John Huss
- ↑ The duty of resisting unjust excommunications Huss takes up in his adv. Indulg., Mon., 1: 229–234; de sex Erroribus, 239 sqq.; ad octo Doctores, 383 sqq., etc.
263
