Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/453

Rh innocence, and on May 21 was admitted to preach before the cardinals, but he died June 29, before the formal decision of his case was published. It is highly probable that he was a Joa- chite-one of those who, as we shall see hereafter, reverenced the memory and believed in the apocalyptic prophecies of the Ab- bot Joachim of Flora.

The spirit of indignation and disquiet did not confine itself to denunciations of clerical abuses. Men were growing bolder, and began to question some of the cherished dogmas which gave rise to those abuses. In the synod of 1384 one of the subjects dis- cussed was whether the saints were cognizant of the prayers ad- dressed to them, and whether the worshipper was benefited by their suffrages—the mere raising of such a question showing how dangerously bold had become the spirit of inquiry. The man who most fitly represented this tendency was Mathias of Janow, whom the Archbishop John of Jenzenstein utilized in his efforts to re- form the incurable disorders of the clergy. Mathias was led to trace the troubles to their causes, and to teach heresies from the consequences of which even the protection of the archbishop could not wholly defend him. In the synod of 1389 he was forced to make public recantation of his errors in holding that the images of Christ and the saints gave rise to idolatry, and that they ought to be banished from the churches and burned; that relics were of no service, and the intercession of saints was useless; while his teaching that every one should be urged to take communion daily foreshadowed the eucharistic troubles which play so large a part in the Hussite excitement. Yet he was allowed to escape with six months' suspension from preaching and hearing confessions outside of his own parochial church, a mistaken lenity which he repaid by continuing to teach the same errors more audaciously than ever, and even urging that the laity be admitted to com- munion in both elements. Mathias was not alone in his hetero- doxy, for in the same synod of 1389 a priest named Andreas was obliged to revoke the same heresy respecting images, and another named Jacob was suspended from preaching for ten years for a still more offensive expression of similar beliefs, with the addition