Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/136

 affirmed, in the name of the community of Tábor, that it considered the ritual of the Catholic Church as founded, not on the traditions and decrees of Christ, but on the authority of popes and others belonging to a far later period. The university of Prague, representing the Utraquist Church, replied in a very prolix document. This paper energetically defended the ritual of the Roman Church, which decreed the use of vestments, and it declared that he who despised his mother, the primitive Church, to whom the Saviour granted power upon earth inferior only to His own, was not only a publican and sinner, but was Satan himself. The lengthy document contained very numerous quotations; those from the Old Testament refer principally to the ritual of the Jews; even the distinct dress of the ancient Egyptian priests is adduced as an argument in favour of vestments. The principal statement is that all regulations of God, and those of the Holy Church which are not opposed to God’s law, and in particular the use of vestments, must be observed by the faithful. These statements of the views of the two parties clearly show how great the distance between them had already become.

The community of Tábor and their allies in Prague, such as the priest John of Zělivo, were at that time carried away by an ultra-revolutionary current, and had it not been for Žižka both cities might have fallen into a state of complete anarchy.