Second Commentary on the Doctrine of Abstinence

we shall state without evasion. He attacks JOHN HUSS in the first place, e) and calls his punishment—which is termed martyrdom—a fabrication, while he calls the doctrines handed down by him the controversies of theologians, full of sophistry, which the dull and sluggish intellect of the Bohemians could not possibly grasp. He claims that Huss’s disciples supported his doctrine—which would not have spread outside of Bohemia—for the purpose of becoming autonomous, so that they would no longer depend on anyone's power, and that under the guise of maintaining the freedom of religious opinion, they might conceal defection and rebellion. Having left Huss, he turns himself to LUTHER f) and supposes that he, at the urging of Staupitz, his superior, spoke out in opposition because the Augustinian monks had burned with profound envy against the Dominicans, to whom the trade in documents (which granted forgiveness for sins and immunity) had been entrusted, when it should have been committed to themselves. He accuses the same man of having brought forward doubtful propositions, supported by new arguments, and of having experienced great pleasure in the fact that he had found a time to pronounce his opinion more freely, to which he had indulged himself without moderation and with great lack of self-control. There are many things by which he imagines that neither the divine providence—which nonetheless directs all things by its own will—nor a just ardor for defending the truth, but rather a lust for disputing, ignorance, a thirst for glory, and other unbridled desires, opened the way for restoring sacred matters and disseminated them far and wide.