Preachers, Partisans, and Rebellious Religion. Marcela K. Perett
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they command what is right to do.”82 He wrote: “the pope also bans priests from preaching God’s word in chapels, he bans priests from celebrating mass, priests who preach well and whose heart is in the right place. In that case, the priests ought to disobey the pope’s order, because it is contrary to God’s commandments. And so it is sometimes beneficial to disobey prelates and one’s superiors.”83 Hus insisted that no ban on preaching (or on celebrating the mass), regardless of the authority behind it, should ever be obeyed. This was a highly polemical move. Unauthorized preaching had been a thorn in the church’s side since the times of Peter Valdes in the twelfth century, and never quite went away in spite of repeated legislation and persecution against offenders. Hus’s hypothetical example of a pope who opposed the saintly life of virginity established a conjectural possibility that even the pope might err in judgment. Thus, Hus could suggest that the pope made an error in his ban on preaching. In a court of law, a vague suggestion is worth very little. But in the court of public opinion, it was enough to sow doubt and dissatisfaction among Hus’s lay supporters.
In the fifth error, Hus took up a discussion of ecclesiastical condemnation. Once again, this was in direct response to his recent experiences with the curia and served to undermine, however implicitly, the authority of ecclesiastical authorities.
Hus allowed that sometimes condemnation was an appropriate punishment but argued that a distinction needed to be made between just and unjust condemnation, depending on whether or not it was issued in accordance with God’s commandment of love. Hus did not address the question of how to determine this or who could do so. He simply implied that the decisions of clerical authorities are not automatically valid or trustworthy; one has to review and judge them for oneself. Hus presented a hypothetical scenario: if a man, innocent of mortal sin, was punished with unjust condemnation, yet continued to stand firm and endured the shame humbly, he would not be harmed by the condemnation. Quite the opposite: his soul would profit. Of course, this situation was hardly hypothetical. Hus was, of course, this man. The legal case against him, beginning with his appeal against the burning of Wyclif’s books, dragged on with new and stricter injunctions.84 Hus wrote: “And, for this reason, false condemnation abounds and it is clear that such condemnation harms those who issue it rather than those who suffer it. Because if one is innocent of mortal sin and if they use said condemnation in order to separate him from God’s truth and if he stands firm suffering in humility, the condemnation does not harm him but instead benefits his soul.”85 Hus’s voice resounded clearly here, insisting that he had been unjustly condemned, yet incurred no spiritual harm from it, and even encouraging the faithful not to shy away from contact with him as they would have been instructed to do.
But Hus openly stated that if he was not guilty of wrongdoing, his accusers were. With this statement he moved the discussion away from the question of his own guilt or innocence and toward the use of condemnation and excommunication by those in authority in the church. Hus insisted that ecclesiastical excommunication and condemnation ought to be used to ensure the overall health of the body of the church, by amputating diseased members rather than punishing or crushing opposition: “Condemnation and excommunication ought to be like medicine, which can heal rather than destroy a person.”86 Condemnation had become a weapon in contemporary church disputes, and it was also widely used for a variety of nonspiritual purposes, even to punish secular offenses or to extract debts. Accusations of heresy had been bandied about for the same reasons.87 But Hus quickly zeroed in on the problem closest to his own heart, moving on the offensive and putting the church authorities on trial. He wrote, “Whoever condemns [another] except in the case of mortal sin, condemns himself, the same holds true for when he condemns for his own vengeance or out of greed or anger or pride.”88 In other words, ecclesiastical condemnation issued out of any sort of personal reasons, private vendettas, or attempts to squelch or control opposition, according to Hus, not only is invalid but also condemns the person issuing it. And since Hus was very vocal about his belief that he had been condemned unjustly, his discussion of the fifth error turns into an open accusation of his accusers. It is no wonder that both the king and the archbishop, who had previously supported and even admired Hus, began to regard the Bethlehem preacher as a disruptive troublemaker.
Hus ended his treatise about clerical malfeasance and corruption by addressing the problem of simony as the sixth error,89 but the discussion seems more like an afterthought. His treatment is very brief as Hus directs his readers to his earlier treatise, entirely dedicated to the subject.90 Hus explains the rudiments of simony, insisting that “no spiritual goods were to be exchanged for temporal rewards, money, or services”91 and that “everyone who wished to trade a material thing, such as money, service, gifts, in exchange for ordination as a priest or bishop was guilty of simony.”92 However, it would have been difficult to find anyone who had received an ecclesiastical office without greasing a hand or two. Also, payments for weddings, baptisms, funerals, and other services abounded, so it is not clear whether Hus really meant to indict the entire clergy or only a select few. (His views on the subject would become more pronounced in his vernacular Expositions, discussed below.) However, this general critique eventually turned into a rant about his hypocritical contemporaries, who did not suspend their services even when they knew Hus was in town, in direct violation of the interdict: “And Prague clergy along with the archbishop, knowing that I am here and that others have seen me, they did not interrupt God’s services despite the pope’s commandment that they do so. And so, themselves disobedient, they are cursed and profani, and they have lost their priesthood.”93 It seems strange that Hus would complain that his visit to the city did not reactivate the terms of the interdict, which would only have been inconvenient to himself. But the double standard, the fact that the clerics disobeyed the very same papal order that they punished Hus for disobeying, is at the heart of his final complaint.
Hus’s vernacular treatise On the Six Errors educated the laity about the proper extent of clerical privilege. Hus brought important theological distinctions to the people, teaching them about the true nature of divine authority and the very real limits of clerical powers. This is where he sailed into forbidden and quite polemical territory. Hus insisted that the priests held no authority over an individual’s eventual salvation or damnation. And if the priests behaved badly, they held no authority at all. He exhorted the laity to evaluate for themselves the edicts and pronouncements of ecclesiastical leaders, including the pope. Thus, On the Six Errors is both an attempt to help the laity understand the religious matters of their day and a theological justification of Hus’s own defiant disobedience of the papal curia. Between the lines, we hear Hus quietly assuring his followers that those in accordance with God’s law would be claimed as God’s own, regardless of the ritual or legal prohibitions of the church. By insisting that the church hierarchy had no authority over his eternal fate, Hus inserted an element of individualism: the power to decide for oneself whether one lived in accordance with God’s law. Divorcing the dictates of one’s conscience from the prescriptions of the church was among the first steps in building his own faction of supporters. This was also one of the long-lasting effects of Hus’s theological education, teaching his followers not to fear the clergy on account of their powers, but rather to examine their actions and test them against their conscience. As an education, this was a highly polemical and divisive one. Hus’s decision to display this polemical treatise says much about Hus’s intention to shape an antiestablishment faction under his own direction.
Hus Appeals to Christ
Hus’s legal troubles culminated in the fourth excommunication, announced on October 18, 1412, at the meeting of the Prague synod. Since the curia did not give him justice, Hus turned to a court that would, the court of public opinion. Instead of appealing the verdict through appropriate legal channels within the twenty-three days allotted to him, Hus published what came to be known as his “Appeal to Christ.” This document was addressed to “all faithful Christians” and explained the failures of due process. Hus argued that the present interdict, as well as the excommunication imposed upon him, was unjust and resulted from an abuse of the law.94
In a deliberate act of public theater, Hus announced his appeal to Christ from Bethlehem’s pulpit and concurrently had a translated version nailed to the gate of Mostecká tower in Prague’s Malá