Christian Unity (the book) - The Maranatha Community

Far more serious criticisms of the status quo were made by Marsiglio of Padua(c.1275-1342). In his Defensor Pacis (1324) he exalted the power of the Stateabove that of the Church. Ultimate authority resided in the people, not in anyindividual or group. The Church had no rights which were not given by theState, even to the owning of property or spiritual jurisdiction. The Pope wassubject to the Emperor; the clergy had no rights over the sovereign and novoice in his selection; the people as a whole might depose him, but not thePope. The Prince alone was empowered to condemn heretics, but only if thewelfare of the State was threatened. Needless to say Marsiglio wasexcommunicated.Disaffection with the totalitarian nature of the church continued to grow, andit was the overbearing authority of the Papacy which lay behind much ofWycliffe’s opposition and that of Jan Hus (c.1372-1415), the Bohemian martyrscholarwho spread Wycliffe’s teaching in Central Europe. The Papacy itselfcontributed to this rise of discontent by the crises of the Avignon Papacy andthe Great Schism (1378-1417), in which Christendom was divided as Popes andanti-Popes all vied for power.John Hus was the first Protestant martyr, before there was, strictly, such athing as Protestantism. Wycliffe’s views were brought to Prague by scholars in1401, and at his Bethlehem Chapel in Prague (beautifully rebuilt in Communistdays and a tourist attraction today) Hus preached many of Wycliffe’s ideas. Inhis De Ecclesia (‘On the Church’) he drew heavily on Wycliffe and criticized thepower structures of his day. His condemnation of the worldliness of the clergyaroused considerable hostility. As Rector of Charles University he gained apopular following, but the Church forbade him to preach and excommunicatedhim in 1411. He was summoned to appear at the Council of Constance inNovember 1414, condemned, and burned as a heretic on 6 July 1415.Hus’s followers kept his teaching alive and a moderate section of them laterbecame known as the Unitas Fratrum (‘Unity of Brethren’), who had animpressive record of suffering for unity’s sake in subsequent centuries, thespiritual ancestors of the Moravians who come into church history in the 18 thCentury.The Unity of the Brethren were the spiritual descendents of the Hussites whohad carried Jan Hus’s and John Wycliffe’s teaching from Prague acrossBohemia at the beginning of the 15 th Century. Lollard (Wycliffite) viewsPage 62