Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/321

 admit the standpoint of the council, the attempts to interrupt Hus by cries and insults when he endeavoured to speak remain indefensible.

We have, however, to consider a further point which has recently attracted considerable attention: Was Hus a heretic? In other words, did he hold any doctrine that was opposed to the teaching of the Church of Rome in the development which it had attained at the beginning of the fifteenth century? It has here been repeatedly stated, and cannot be sufficiently often reaffirmed, that the principal cause on which Hus staked his life was that of church-reform. An intensely pious and rigidly virtuous priest, he viewed with what to worldly men may appear a puerile feeling of horror and indignation the unspeakable degradation of the Bohemian clergy. It has been necessary in this book, destined for the general public, to withhold much evidence on this point. The fact that the ruling powers of the Roman Church made no attempt to discountenance the vices of its clergy, together with the study of Wycliffe’s works, then led Hus to adverse criticism of the ecclesiastical organisation of the church, and of papacy in particular. Though there were, as already mentioned, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries writers who maintained the overwhelming power and authority of the pope as strongly and as unconditionally as has been done recently, yet freedom of opinion on such matters still existed at the time of Hus, and he cannot be called a heretic for expressing views contrary to those of Rome on questions which only the councils of Trent and the Vatican have declared to be matters of dogma. It is certain that many of the accusations against Hus were absolutely false. This applies not only to the monstrous statement that Hus had pretended to be a fourth person within the divinity, but also to such accusations as that Hus had declared the sacrament to be invalid when administered by an unworthy priest. Hus had in his writings frequently and distinctly expressed the contrary opinion. The question