Page:John Huss, his life, teachings and death, after five hundred years.pdf/149

 tolic see or a bishop, that tithes are alms, that no one in mortal sin may validly administer the sacraments of baptism, the Lord’s Supper, absolution, and ordination, and that the king may deprive priests unfaithful in their duties of their worldly support. No pope or bishop or other mortal, he insisted, has the authority to stop priest and deacon from preaching. A king has not the right to forbid his subjects giving alms. No more has a spiritual superior the right to forbid the giving of the spiritual alms of the sermon to those who are spiritually needy and thirsty.

In an audience before the king at Zebrak, Huss, in vindication of his views, offered to undergo a test on condition that each of the other eight doctors did the same, each of them as well as himself submitting to the ordeal of burning as heretics in case of failure to make good his position. All of the eight were present at the audience and refused to yield to Huss’s suggestion. The situation was aggravated rather than appeased by the audience.

Huss’s unequivocal opposition to what was the traditional view of the church came out if possible more distinctly than before in his reply to the writing of the eight doctors. It must be remembered that the eight had declared themselves in favor of John XXIII’s bulls of indulgence. In this document the chief question which Huss dwelt upon was the question of papal authority, which he treated chiefly in the light of the New Testament practice. He elaborated the essential principles laid down in the writings against John’s bulls already adduced and took up the arguments of the doctors one by one. He made a clear distinction between mandates issuing from the Apostles and commands contained in papal bulls. Bulls are only to be obeyed so far as they conform to the Gospel of Christ and the epistles of the Apostles. Bulls had often been recalled or superseded or, in case of a pope’s death, allowed to lapse. He had heard