CH. II.]

CHARACTER OF HUSS.

81

loyalty to truth, and his respect for the rights and judgment of others, are happily blended. We could scarcely wish him to have been other than he was. Even without the crown of martyrdom, we should have been constrained to pronounce him brave and true, the possessor of a manly, noble nature.

I have not thought it necessary to sum up at length the character of Huss; for its leading features are quite distinctly brought out in the course of the narrative. Frank, genial, and confiding, he scorned all disguise of his views or feelings. His motives are transparent and avowed, and he is never ashamed to confess them. The man stands forth before us, delineated in his own words and deeds.

That he valued and desired the love of all good men is obvious; but he seems never to have been carried away by the mere love of applause. Severely, and perhaps at times morbidly, conscientious, his moral character is above the reach of calumny. The malice of his enemies could not detect in it a flaw or stain. In his familiar letters, he censures himself for faults which most would have scarcely esteemed foibles. He reproaches himself for playing chess, and for an attention to dress which was unbecoming. But his gentleness and charity, his purity and integ rity, are above question. They were eloquently attested, as we shall see hereafter, by the document in which the university vindicated his memory from the charges of the council.

In his controversies he never descends to personal abuse. He expresses, in strong language, his disap

proval of the course of some of his party in the use of reproachful epithets. Yet it is evident that he lacked neither the occasion or ability, had he been so disposed, to cover his opponents with ridicule, and convert his success into a personal triumph. But this his loyalty to truth as well as the kindliness of his nature forbade.

His social affections were warm and tender. His letters in exile and from prison unfold his heart to us. We have, indeed, in Huss a man whose faculties were admirably balanced,-true and devoted as a friend, powerful yet courteous as an antagonist, eloquent in the pulpit, faithful as a witness to the truth before the council, a hero in the prison, and a martyr at the stake.

CHAPTER III.

JACOBEL, GERSON, AND VOLADAMIR.

THE USE OF THE CUP.- DECREE OF THE COUNCIL. REASONS ON WHICH IT WAS BASED. HISTORY OF THE USE OF THE CUP.-JACOBEL'S TREATISE. HIS ARGUMENT CHARACTERIZED. - SHARP SENTENCES. - PERSECUTION REBUKED. THE BOLD TONE OF JACOBEL'S TREATISE. GREGORY'S ABDICATION. - BENEDICT XIII. SUMMONED. — AFFAIR OF JOHN PETIT. — HIS CHARACTER. HIS PROPOSITIONS CONDEMNED AT PARIS. THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY APPEALS TO THE POPE. THE QUESTION BEFORE THE COUNCIL. THE ASPECT OF THE CASE CHANGED.-ENGLAND ALLIED WTH THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY. TIMIDITY OF THE COUNCIL. DISAPPOINTMENT OF GERSON. THE KING OF POLAND AND THE TEUTONIC KNIGHTS. SKETCH OF THe Order. - QuESTION BEFORE THE COUNCIL. - PAUL VOLADAMIR AND HIS PROPOSITIONS. THEIR LIBERAL TONE. -VON FALKENBurg. — ApologIZES FOR THE ORDER. HIS BOOK ESCAPES CONDEMNATION. GERSON'S MOTIVES.— PERSONAL DANGER. — ATTACKED BY FALKENBURG. - FUTILE HOPES.

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MAY, 1415 AUGUST, 1415.

DURING the period which intervened between the first appearance of Huss before the council and his final sentence, there were other subjects of discussion, of grave importance, which claimed the attention of the members of that body. The Bishop of Litomischel, as we have already seen, entered his complaint against the innovation introduced by Jacobel at Prague. The matter had been given in charge to the theologians of the council, who were directed to examine and report. The result of their labors was a small treatise, in reproof of the innovation. This treatise was submitted to the council, and furnished

1 Van der Hardt, tom. iii., pt. xvii., p. 586.

the grounds upon which their subsequent decree (June 15th, 1415) was based. It pronounces the authority and long practice of the church a sufficient warrant for the withholding of the cup, and declares heretical any who should maintain the contrary opinion; and such persons, as heretical, are to be proceeded against, wherever they may be found, by the diocesans, their vicars, or the inquisitors of heretical pravity, even to the infliction upon them of severe penalties.1

The conclusions of the doctors and the penal decree of the council were not calculated to set the question at rest. As to the first, by their admissions they stultified themselves. As to the latter, Jacobel was not a man to be intimidated by its terrors. The doctors had admitted-as they could not well denythat as the sacrament was instituted by Christ, and observed by the early church, the communion of the cup had been allowed. Their argument for withholding it from the laity was based upon the practice and authority of the church. A custom long observed, had, they remarked, the force of law, and the church had the right to make or adopt such changes in the sacraments as she deemed fitting. On these grounds, which would allow age to sanctify error, and permit the institutions of Christ to be mutilated or abrogated by human caprice, they justified the practice of the church in the withholding of the cup.

But the plea in its favor, drawn from custom and precedent, was by no means a strong one. Scarce two centuries had passed since the cup had been first 1 Van der Hardt, iv. 332. Fleury, xxvi· 103.

CH. III.]

THE DOCTRINE OF THE CUP.

85

withheld. In England the practice seems first to have prevailed, and yet, from the writings of Anselm we infer that he knew nothing of it. The celebrated Thomas Aquinas is the first of any eminence who taught that the communion of both kinds was unnecessary, inasmuch as the body and blood of our Lord are found in each. Bonaventura goes further, and advises the withholding of the cup from the laity. These two men, whose names supplied the place of authority with the Dominicans and Franciscans respectively, first gave an impulse to the innovation. The mendicant monks, swarming all over Europe, carried the practice with them. By degrees the communion of the cup fell into disuse. In order that laymen might communicate in both kinds, a dispensation was at length required by the popes. This gainful prerogative, once secured, was not likely to be given up. It was a new jewel in the tiara of papal prerogative. The first ecclesiastical statute discoverable on the subject, dates from the year 1261. It was enacted at a general chapter of the Cistercian order, and is grounded on the pretence that evils arise from making the communion of the cup general. In the middle of the fourteenth century, yet less than fifty years before the birth of Huss, the denial of the cup to the laity had become common. But in Bohemia, on the confines of the Greek church, the innovation made slower progress. Matthias, who died at Prague in 1389, and who is said to have maintained the same doctrine on the subject with Jacobel, must have seen and conversed with those 'Spittler's History of the Cup.