e prelates looked at one another, shook their heads and laughed. If
Hus was to be burned for only saying that, what did they deserve for
actually imprisoning the Pope?

Hus held the Pope's temporal power came from the (forged) donation of
the Emperor Constantine, not from Christ, and stoutly stuck to it
against the great Cardinal of Cambray.

Hus had spoken and written plainly against the wicked lives of prelates
and popes, and for this he was to be burned, although d'Ailly and Gerson
also had done so, and this very Council had deposed a vile wretch, Pope
John XXIII.

Another heresy of Hus was this: "A heretic ought to be first instructed
kindly, justly, and humbly from the Sacred Scriptures," then he may be
burned.

"All those who give up to the civil sword any innocent man, as the
scribes and Pharisees did Christ," are like the Pharisees.

[Illustration: HUS BEFORE THE COUNCIL, BY BROZIK]

The Prelates felt the thrust. "You mean to condemn the dignitaries of
the Church!" For this they would burn Hus.

Hus said an evil nature cannot do good. In a state of grace, however,
the man, whether he eat or drink or sleep, does everything to the glory
of God. This plain truth of God was damned as heresy!

Hus was charged with calling an unjust excommunication a benediction.
"In truth, I say the same thing now, according to that Scripture, 'They
shall curse, but Thou shalt bless'."

Another heresy ran thus: "If pope, bishop or prelate be in mortal sin,
then is he no longer pope, bishop or prelate." Hus defended it by asking
pointedly: "If John XXIII was a true pope, why did you depose him from
his office?"

Hus said the Church did not need an earthly head, a pope; Christ, the
true head, can rule His church better without the popes, who were often
monsters of iniquity. Shouts of derision!

Hus calmly added the telling point: "Surely the Church in the times of
the Apostles was infinitely better ruled than now. At present we have no
such head at all."

He could not be answered, and so he was derided.

An Englishman correctly pointed out that this was the teaching of
Wiclif. That was ample to damn Hus as a heretic.

Pierre d'Ailly said to the Emperor Sigismund: "Almost all the articles
are based on Wiclif, so that the Englishman John Stokes was right in
saying Hus had no right to boast of these teachings as his property,
since they all demonstrably belonged to Wiclif."

In order to embitter the Emperor against Hus,