Huss and Jerome
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take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you
in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but
the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.”
Matthew 10:18-20
.
The words of Jerome excited astonishment and admiration, even
in his enemies. For a whole year he had been immured in a dungeon,
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unable to read or even to see, in great physical suffering and mental
anxiety. Yet his arguments were presented with as much clearness and
power as if he had had undisturbed opportunity for study. He pointed
his hearers to the long line of holy men who had been condemned
by unjust judges. In almost every generation have been those who,
while seeking to elevate the people of their time, have been reproached
and cast out, but who in later times have been shown to be deserv-
ing of honor. Christ Himself was condemned as a malefactor at an
unrighteous tribunal.
At his retraction, Jerome had assented to the justice of the sentence
condemning Huss; he now declared his repentance and bore witness
to the innocence and holiness of the martyr. “I knew him from his
childhood,” he said. “He was a most excellent man, just and holy; he
was condemned, notwithstanding his innocence.... I also—I am ready
to die: I will not recoil before the torments that are prepared for me by
my enemies and false witnesses, who will one day have to render an
account of their impostures before the great God, whom nothing can
deceive.”—Bonnechose, vol. 2, p. 151.
In self-reproach for his own denial of the truth, Jerome continued:
“Of all the sins that I have committed since my youth, none weigh
so heavily on my mind, and cause me such poignant remorse, as
that which I committed in this fatal place, when I approved of the
iniquitous sentence rendered against Wycliffe, and against the holy
martyr, John Huss, my master and my friend. Yes! I confess it from
my heart, and declare with horror that I disgracefully quailed when,
through a dread of death, I condemned their doctrines. I therefore
supplicate ... Almighty God to deign to pardon me my sins, and this
one in particular, the most heinous of all.” Pointing to his judges, he
said firmly: “You condemned Wycliffe and John Huss, not for having
shaken the doctrine of the church, but simply because they branded
with reprobation the scandals proceeding from the clergy—their pomp,
their pride, and all the vices of the prelates and priests. The things
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