Deviating From the Faith

Gerson put forward many scenarios that not only permitted but demanded disobedience to the pope, even insurrection.  For example, should the pope be responsible for either schism or heresy, it was the duty of the church to convene without him and, potentially, to consider inflicting the severest punishment.

The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, by Matthew Barrett

Jean Gerson was chancellor at the University of Paris.  He wrote on this idea in 1409.  He would continue:

“It would be permissible to hold a general council against [the pope’s] will; and, finally, to force him to abdicate, or, if he resisted, to deprive him of all honor and rank, and even his life.”

He would write this in the middle of what Barrett calls “the Great Schism.”  Now, I know that phrase regarding the East-West split in 1054, and I believe this is the more recognized understanding of the phrase.  Barrett is writing of the Western Schism: multiple popes, in multiple locations.  To avoid confusion, at least my confusion, I will use the phrase “Western Schism,” counter to Barrett’s terminology.

The Italian pope was Urban VI, the French pope was Clement VII.  The time was 1378, just after French control of the papacy was brought to a close – well, French unilateral control.  The same cardinals first chose one of these two, then they chose the other.  Each pope would choose international allies, dividing up Europe between them.  Anathemas all around, salvation in question.

The French Church held the idea that it was an equal partner to the Roman Church.  This would bring to the fore in the West the idea of conciliarism – the idea that councils, and not an individual bishop, had the highest authority in the Church.  It was an idea grounded in the earliest Church, when a council of bishops would decide matters of theology.  It was an idea that held even when the Roman bishop was considered first among equals.

In the case where the pope or the cardinals were in error, it was the duty of the Catholic Church (meaning universal, through time; not meaning Roman) to correct them through a council.  If deviation was found, discipline by the council would follow.

There were many who would advance this idea of conciliarism in the Western Church in the late fourteenth century.  A common breeding ground was the University of Paris.  Letters were written: A Letter of Concord, by Conrad of Gelnhausen; A Letter on Behalf of a Council of Peace, by Henry of Langenstein.  The letters were appeals to the two kings, Charles V of France and Wenceslas IV of Rome.

Appeals were made to the example set by Constantine, calling a council to resolve differences and divisions in the Church.  Augustine would find hope for reconciliation only in and through such councils – a universal assembly. 

Henry would write:

“The pope is able to err in passing judgment,” but the “Universal Church…is not able to err” and therefore is “superior to the college of cardinals and the pope because he does not have this prerogative.”

A council cannot err because a) it is guided by the Holy Spirit, and b) the Church has a never-failing Head: Jesus Christ.

The raising of this idea would backfire.  Clement VII, the French pope, would tighten his grip on the university.  The German theologians pressing these ideas were forced out.  But others, including Gerson (cited above) would continue the work, and, it seems, in even more bombastic language.

In the same year of Gerson’s tract, an attempt was made to resolve this schism.  A new pope would be elected, with the intention of replacing the two existing popes and uniting the Western Church.  It didn’t work that way, as neither Gregory XII in Rome nor Benedict XIII in Avignon bought into the idea of being replaced by Alexander V.  Now there were three popes.

From 1414 – 1418, the Council of Constance, called by Sigismund, the Holy Roman emperor, attempted to resolve this issue.  Sigismund managed to eliminate all three popes through his political astuteness and maneuvering.  John XXIII agreed to abdicate on the condition that the other two did also, which they did.  Martin V was elected in 1417.

Conciliarism won, you might say.  But not so fast.  Now that the papacy was unified again, the pope felt curialism was the right path – the supremacy of the pope over the council.  Both Martin and his successor would hold conciliarism in animosity. 

In 1460, Pope Pius II issued a bull that threatened excommunication to anyone who appealed to a council instead of to the pope.  By the latter half of the fifteenth century, papal power, supremacy, and claims to infallibility were firmly re-established.

So much for such deviations in the papacy.  John Wyclif, a fourteenth century professor at the University of Oxford, was unafraid to expose papal corruption and clerical pollution.  His king, Edward III, despised the pope’s claim over England, so he did nothing to shut Wyclif up.  Since Wyclif supported the idea that God placed the state to mandate church discipline when the church deviated from the faith, he found powerful supporters in many corners.

Wyclif found claims of papal supremacy an affront to Christianity.  Foreshadowing the Reformation’s sola scriptura, he felt Scripture was the only infallible authority and should be the central focus of the church.  He labored to translate from the Vulgate to the local vernacular.

Other of his views and positions: a foreshadowing of sola gratia; predestination; faith as a matter of an inward disposition of the heart; the people of God are not to be found in Rome, but in an invisible assembly of true believers; presenting the necessary qualifications of a bishop.  Much of this, obviously, was a challenge to Rome.

Wyclif issued a clear call to reform the status of pastor.  Two things are required: the holiness of the pastor and the wholesomeness of his teaching.

The pastor must righteously feed his sheep on the Word of God, he must purge the sheep of disease, and he must defend his sheep from the wolves.  Pastors must live as they preach in order to be effective shepherds. 

He went a step too far regarding the support he received from the nobility, however, when he questioned transubstantiation.  He felt that he had the support of Augustine: we do not eat and drink in a carnal way, but only in a spiritual sense.

He was not excommunicated for this or any of his views during his lifetime.  However, his views would earn him the label of heretic, a condemnation pronounced on him at the aforementioned Council of Costance, some thirty years after his death.  His body was exhumed, burned, and thrown into the river.

Jan Hus would catch Wyclif’s ideas as students would return from Oxford to Bohemia.  While Hus would not question transubstantiation, many of Wyclif’s other views would take hold – including predestination.  He would protest indulgences, a century before Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses.  During the Western Schism, this placed him in the sights of more than one pope at the same time.

While the Roman Church was the true Church, the pope and the cardinals can err.  You would think that further evidence for this at the time of the Western Schism need not be necessary – if nothing else, two of the three popes had to be in error.  Yet Hus would challenge further, accusing the church of simony, the buying and selling of church offices and a buying and selling of church offices and the various blessings that can be administered by the priest.

His solution?

“Papal power is limited by God’s law, the law of nature, and the pronouncements of saints which are grounded in God’s Word.”

Further, the temporal authorities have the responsibility to rid such men from the leadership of the Church.  God gave them such authority, per Hus. 

Hus was summoned to the Council of Constance in 1414.  The emperor, Sigismund, promised safe passage, but this turned out to be just for the trip in.  The Councils was hostile to Hus’s views on church doctrine and practice.  Their only intention was to capture him, convict him a heretic, and burn him at the stake.  They did all of this, throwing in a brutal imprisonment for good measure.

Given the chance to recant just before his execution, Hus appealed to Scripture: if he could be shown from Scripture where he erred, he would recant.  They did not, and he did not.  The next day, he was unfrocked, and one by one charges were read against him.  After each one, Hus objected to the false charge, but he was shut down each time, told he could respond in total at the end.

The articles were extreme as well.  for example, one of them claimed that Hus taught that he was the fourth person of the Trinity.

Of course, by the time the many false charges were read, no defense was possible given the emotion brought on by the weight.  In any case, the verdict and sentence were predetermined.

Concerned that his zealous followers would see Hus as a martyr, with a desire to find and keep some remnant of his remains, they would burn him and destroy what was left of his body.  His head was clubbed and charred; his heart was impaled, torn into pieces and scorched.  Once the remains were nothing but ash, these were thrown into the Rhine.

Conclusion

A century later, Luther would raise again many, but not all, of Hus’s same concerns.  This story is still to come.

Epilogue

Sigismund’s brother was the king of Bohemia.  When he died, Sigismund took, by right, Bohemia’s throne.  The people of Bohemia rose in protest – this was the emperor that martyred Hus. 

Pope Martin V drafted crusaders to help Sigismund, but to no avail.  The armies of the Church were defeated over and over – forcing a compromise after almost fifteen years of fighting. 

Unfortunately, the Bohemians won the battle but could not fully win the war.  Two factions emerged, with one willing to join with the Catholic Church to fight against the other.