Page:John Huss, his life, teachings and death, after five hundred years.pdf/229

 Englishmen entered into the discussion. One started up and sought to lay bare how, on the Realistic theory, the primal substance must remain in the elements after consecration. To this Huss replied that such puerile argument befitted schoolboys. A second Englishman standing close to Huss started to prove that on that theory after the consecration the substantial form of the material bread remained and also the substance of the original bread was not annihilated. Huss replied, that it was true it was not annihilated, but by an exceptional law—singulariter—it ceased to be and was transubstantiated into the body of Christ. An Englishman then replied that Huss, following Wyclif, was now answering with reservation, but that, nevertheless, he held that the real bread remained. To this Huss retorted that, before God, he was speaking sincerely and from the heart, and that he believed the consecrated bread was the rcal body which was born of Mary, suffered, died and rose again and sitteth at the right hand of God. This was substantially the wording of the definition of the fourth Lateran council, which defined the dogma of transubstantiation. One of the Englishmen then went on to say that there was no reason for introducing into the hearing an irrelevant question which meant nothing for an act which was an act of faith; Huss was right.

At this point a familiar figure appeared, the Englishman Stokes, whom we have met at Prague, and whó deposed that he had seen in the Bohemian capital a book, ascribed to Huss, teaching remanence. To this Huss replied that it was not true. On others adding their testimonies that Huss had preached this doctrine, the Florentine cardinal Zabarella appealed to the law, that in the mouth of two or threc witnesses a thing is established. To this Huss made answer that God and his conscience knew what he had preached and had in his heart, and all the testimonies of his adversaries would do him no injury. Another doctor who attempted to explain transubstantiation got confused and sat down, saying of