Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/99

 HUSS 91 siastical power; and in his treatise Contra Occultum Adversarium, written at this time, he maintains the doctrine that kings have the right to rule the clergy not less than the laity. Soon more serious trouble arose. The po|>e had issued bulls of excommunication against King Ladislas of Naples. Political reasons in- duced the court and university to side with the pope ; but Huss immediately published two tracts against the papal bulls. A reaction fol- lowed. The partisans of the pope were insult- ed in the streets, and Huss had great difficulty in restraining the fury of his followers. This was followed by tracts which maintained that the clergy were only stewards of the wealth in their possession, which belonged to the people and not to the church. Huss contended that not the priest's word, but the power of God, wrought the change of transubstantiation ; claimed that any one moved by the Spirit had the right to preach ; and asserted the right of conscience as against the edicts of popes and councils. He was accused of denouncing the veneration of saints and the worship of the Vir- gin, but defended himself against these charges. He was again summoned to Rome, but took no heed of the order. Repeated attempts were made by the king to compose the difficulties, but without success. A decree was procured from Rome, putting Huss again under ban as an incorrigible heretic ; and at the earnest re- quest of the king, he left Prague for a time, and found shelter in his native town. In a long treatise upon "The Church," he holds that the papacy began to exist at the time of Con- stantine, and that its usurpations threatened to secularize and so to destroy the gospel. Fre- quent letters and occasional secret visits con- firmed the zeal of his partisans. He continued to preach in the cities to immense crowds; and after a time, to be nearer Prague, he re- moved his residence to the castle of Cracowitz, which had been offered him as a refuge. In 1414, at the instigation of the emperor Sigis- mund, Pope John XXIII. summoned a general council at Constance, and Huss was cited to appear. Trusting to the safe-conduct which the emperor granted him, he resolved to obey. On his arrival at Constance he was welcomed by the pope with a fraternal greeting, and was promised that the former interdict should be suspended. For some time Huss was free to come and go, to discuss and preach. Expect- ing a special trial, he had prepared his defence. But on Nov. 28 he was arrested and imprisoned in the cathedral, and several days later trans- ferred to the Dominican convent, on an island in the lake. An accusation against Hnss had been drawn up, and three commissioners were appointed to visit him in prison, question him, take down his answers, and report to a council of doctors. Huss asked, hut was not allowed, the assistance of counsel. His private letters were opened, his appeals to the emperor disre- garded, and the kind treatment of his prison keepers could hardly compensate for the in- justice of his enemies. The flight of the pope only aggravated his suffering. He was trans- ferred to the strong castle of Gottleben, heav- ily chained. A new commission was appoint- ed to examine and decide in his affair, and at the beginning of June, 1415, he was re- moved to the Franciscan convent in Con- stance. On June 5 he had his first hearing before the council, which had already at a previous session condemned the heresy of Wyc- liffe. The attempt of Huss to answer the first article of accusation was met by such a storm of outcries that he was unable to proceed ; and the hearing was adjourned until the 7th, when it was renewed in presence of the emperor. He was accused of denying transubstantiation ; of treating St. Gregory as a buffoon ; of teach- ing the doctrines of Wycliffe ; of encouraging his friends to resist the mandates of the arch- bishop ; of exciting a schism of the state from the church ; of appealing from the pope to Christ ; of counselling the people to violent and aggressive measures ; and of boasting that he could not have been forced either by pope or emperor to come to Constance, unless he had chosen to come. Some of these charges he admitted ; some he denied. A third hear- ing was allowed him on the next day, when 39 articles, extracted from three of his works, were read, touching various points of his teaching concerning the church, its officers and sacraments. Huss was then summoned to re- tract these heresies, which he declined to do, affirming that he could not retract what he had never said, nor ought he to retract what he had said until its falsity was shown. On June 24 the books of Huss were condemned to be burned as heretical, and on July 6 he was brought before the council to receive sentence. After a discourse by the bishop of Lodi, from the text, " that the body of sin be destroyed," the 39 articles were read, together with the sentence of condemnation of the books of Huss, and finally the sentence of himself, to be de- graded from the priesthood as an incorrigible heretic, and given over to the secular arm. He was then conducted out of the city to an open field, in which a stake and a pile of wood had been erected. Here he was again sum- moned to abjure his heresies, but at the sum- mons he only knelt and prayed, using the words of the psalms of David. As the fire was kindled, he began to sing with a loud voice the Christe eleison, and only ceased when he was suffocated by the rising flame. The ashes of the pile were gathered and cast into the Rhine ; all traces of the event were carefully oblitera- ted, and to this day the exact spot remains un- certain. The writings of Huss, not including the minor pieces lately published by Palacky, are of four kinds, dogmatic and controversial, exegetical, sermons, and epistles. Of the first class, there are 27 separate treatises, besides fragments. Of the class of exegetical writings, there are five treatises, on the acts of Christ, the passion of Christ, a commentary on seven