doctors of the city hall—prætorium—have not proved that a single one of them is heretical, erroneous or scandalous. And I wonder why at the present time the doctors do not teach in the city hall that the article about the withdrawal of temporal goods should not be put into practice, the reason, presumably, being this: that temporal lords may at their own discretion take away temporal goods from ecclesiastics who are habitually delinquent [in their living and duty]. But now they are silent as were the priests and Pharisees, and do not assemble at the city hall to condemn those who put this article into practice. And certainly because, as they feared, it is being applied to them and will be applied in the future. Let them lose their temporal goods but God grant they may preserve their souls.
The doctors kept saying that when the articles were once condemned, then there would be peace and harmony. But this, their prediction, is turned into the very opposite. For they rejoiced while they were condemning, and now they lament while they have to give up their taxes [ecclesiastical incomes]. They condemned this article—namely, that tithes are pure alms and only alms, but many coming into the city hall begged that their taxes—which are alms—be not withheld.[1] But certain lords of the city hall replied and said: Behold, ye yourselves before condemned the principle that tithes are pure alms and now ye are saying that, indeed, they are alms and so ye are acting contrary to your condemnation. So much for the present, other things being left to be discussed in the future.
- ↑ Huss is referring here to the dismissal of certain clerics of Prague from their positions, and the sequestrations of the incomes of others by the civil authorities during the troubles between the Huss party and the party opposed to him. Tithes had been treated by Huss in a separate treatise, Mon., 1: 156–167. Huss defined an alms as "a gift to help the body made for God's sake."
