Huss’s Resistance to Papal Authority
Further, as for the principal thing according to which they believe all their sayings to be necessary or true, the afore-mentioned doctors lay down that ” obedience is due to the apostolic see and to prelates from inferiors in all things whatsoever, where the purely good is not prohibited or the purely evil commanded, but also in that which is intermediate, which, in view of the mode, place, time or person, may be either good or bad in accordance with the Saviour’s statement, Matt. 23:2: ’ Whatsoever they bid you, these do and observe.’ ” And they add the following from Bernard’s Letter to Adam the Monk [Migne’s ed., 182 : 95], which begins thus: ” ‘If thou remain in love, the law for obedience is nxed as in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which was in the midst of paradise.’ In such things certainly it is not right to submit our interpretation to the opinion of the magisters, and in such things neither the command nor the prohibition of prelates is in any wise to be spurned.”
And they add: “But some of the clergy in the kingdom of Bohemia refuse to agree to this, endeavoring, as much as in them lies, to lead the faithful people to disobedience towards prelates and to irreverence towards the papal, episcopal, sacerdotal and clerical dignities, not giving attention to that which St. Augustine says in the words (Sermon 8): ‘If thou hast fasted, hast made prayer night and day, if thou hast been in ashes or begging, if thou hast done nothing else except what is prescribed for thee in the law and thou hast been wise in thine own sight and not obedient to thy father — understand, not bodily father, but spiritual — thou hast lost all virtues. Therefore obedience is worth more than all the other moral virtues.’ ”
By the combination of the above sayings the doctors mix up the false with the true, flattery with fear, and these three things are involved in these words: “Certain of the clergy” — here having in mind our party — “refuse to agree to this, endeavoring as much as in them lies to lead the faithful people to disobedience.” See what a false lie this is, by which they indicate that we are become seducers of the people, when it is (i) not the purpose of our side to seduce the people from real obedience, but that the people may be one, governed harmoniously by the law of Christ. (2) The purpose of our side is that the rules of antichrist shall not seduce or separate the people from Christ, but that the law of Christ shall honestly rule in connection with the customs of the people so far as they are approved by God’s law. (3) The purpose of our side is that the clergy live honestly according to the doctrine of Jesus Christ, laying aside pomp, avarice and luxury. (4) Our side wishes and preaches that the church militant, in its different parts which God has ordained, be honestly commingled, namely, of Christ’s priests those who administer his law in purity, and from the world the nobles who press for the observance of the ordinances of Christ and the common people, both these parts serving in accordance with Christ’s law. Therefore, let the doctors bestow this wrong on our side. But the flattery which they show to prelates and the fear with which they would affright our side are involved in the words: ” endeavouring to lead the faithful people to disobedience towards prelates, and irreverence towards the papal, episcopal, sacerdotal and clerical dignities.” Blessed be Christ Jesus that they have not dared to lay on us the calumny of disobedience to Jesus Christ — or perhaps they have forgotten to do so, for to serve hira is to reign, and obedience rendered to him avails so much
HUSS’S RESISTANCE TO THE POPE 185 that it is of no advantage to obey any one except in so far as such obedience is obedience to our God.
Wherefore, as to that saying of the doctors, “that obedience is due to the apostolic see of the Roman church and to prelates by inferiors in all things,” etc. [we proceed as follows] :
As for obedience, this is to be said : It is to be noted that obedience first is to be understood by analogy or in a very general sense, as is the loyalty of any created thing whatsoever, in respect to the divine will which all created things obey, without resistance — repugnantia — even as a stone obeys by falling or tending downwards, or fire by rising and the sun by illuminating, and so in regard to all other created things. Or else obedience is rendered with resistance, as the devil or a damned man who obeys by suffering because he must. And in this way the saints speak when they say that all things obey their Creator, and man alone, the sinner, does not obey; that is, the sinner does not submit to the rule of the Creator without resistance on the part of his will. But obedience, so far as it is an act of virtue or is virtue, is thus described by some, namely, obedience is the subjection of our own will to the will and judgment of a superior in things lawful and honest — or obedience is the disposition to follow voluntarily a superior’s command in things lawful and honest.