Page:The letters of John Hus.djvu/57

 produced a complete breach, as this letter shows, between the Archbishop and Hus. As a strong adherent of Gregory XII., Zbinek entered into the struggle with the Pisan cardinals by inhibiting, as Hus tells us, ‘in letters fixed to the doors of the churches,’ from all priestly functions Hus and ‘all masters who sided with the sacred college’ (infra, ).

To this challenge Hus replied in the following remonstrance, which we date early in December 1408. It cannot have been written later, for in January 1409 Hus fell dangerously ill, while Wenzel’s decree of “neutrality”—a strong adhesion to the Pisan cardinals—evidently had not yet been issued. From the absence, further, of any reference to the imprisonment of Palecz and Stanislaus of Znaim (see infra, ), we judge that the news of their arrest had not yet reached Prague (about December 8, 1408), for Hus would otherwise have blamed Zbinek for it, or in some way have dentified himself with his friends. For, as The Chronicle of the University informs us, Hus and Christian Prachaticz were the chief agents in procuring their release.

Your humble and dutiful subject now and ever!

It is demanded by our Saviour’s rule that a father should not proceed rashly to the reprobation of a son unless the son rejects his father’s counsel and is clearly convicted of contumacy; nor ought the father of the household to drive away from the harvest a son who works, unless he first of all clearly knows that the son is minded disgracefully to squander his father’s harvest. Thus in the sixteenth of Luke it is shown by our Saviour that the rich man did not give up the steward after hearing the charge of wrong-doing brought against him, but wisely summoned him and said: How is it that I hear