A HISTORY OF BOHEMIAN

I20

LITERATURE

is

a

a

is

It

a

is

is

is

it

if

If

is

in

is is,

Father " or " Head of the Church," but servant of God A change came with the and servant of the Church. " donation of Constantine " (that singular fiction which played so large a part in the theological controversies of the Middle Ages). Since that time the Pope has considered himself as head {capitaneus) of the Church however, according It and Christ's vicar upon earth. Christ's successor to Hus, not certain that the Pope He this world. then only Christ's representative and the successor of St. Peter, and the cardinals are only then the successors of the Apostles when they follow the examples of faith, modesty, and love which the former gave. Many Popes and cardinals have not done this, and, indeed, many saintly men who never were Popes were truer successors of the Apostles than, for instance, the present Pope (John XXllI.). St. Augustine did more for the welfare of the Church than many Popes, and studied its doctrines more profoundly than any cardinal from the first to the last. Pope and cardinals give their attention to worldly affairs, they scandalise the faithful by their ambition and avarice, then they are successors not of Christ, not of Peter, not of the Apostles, but of Satan, of Antichrist, of Judas Iscariot. not Returning to his former point, certain, Hus continues, that the Pope really the head of the Church he cannot even be sure that he not prescitus, and therefore no member of the true Church at all. St. Peter erred even after he had been called by Christ. Pope Leo was heretic, and Pope Gregory was but recently condemned by the Council of Pisa. popular fallacy to imagine that necesPope We must be thankful to God sary to rule the Church. that He gave us His only Son to rule over the Church,