and the church. They were the same views that had appeared so prominently in the writings of Marsiglio of Padua and of the other theologians of the court of Louis of Bavaria, as well as in those of Wycliffe. We find again in this controversial work of Hus allusions to the two great fables of the Middle Ages, the one papal, the other anti-papal. I refer to the “donation of Constantine” and the tale of the Popess Joan, whom Hus calls “Agnes.” Hus here again affirms that Jesus Christ, not the pope, is the head of the Catholic Church. In this mass of argument founded on the writings of earlier theologians, we meet here and there with opinions very characteristic of Hus, who always wished to be a moralist rather than a theologian. Thus, when animadverting on the evil choice often made by popes when appointing bishops, he writes:[1] “Christ, the bridegroom of the church, would far better and more readily choose for the people of the Bohemian nation a bishop learned in its law, able to preach the gospel in Bohemian, one living soberly, chastely, piously, and justly.”
- ↑ Hus Opera, 1715, vol. i. p. 348.
