JEROME, the friend and disciple of John Huss, and, like him, a martyr to the truth. His family name was Faulfisch, but he is generally called "of Prague," from the Bohemian capital in which he was born and brought up. After completing his studies in his native city, he visited the universities of Cologne, Heidelberg, Oxford, and Paris. It is said that he first understood and learned to value the
Jerome. doctrines of Wycliffe while copying the works of that reformer during his stay in England. Certain it is that before he returned to Bohemia from his wanderings over Europe he had signalized himself by a strong opposition to the Church of Rome, and had defended brilliant theses at Paris against Gerson, the famous chancellor of that university. His reputation for learning and practical sagacity was so great, that he was employed by Ladislaus II. of Poland to organise the University of Cracow, and similar compliments were paid him by other crowned heads of that era. Everywhere he proclaimed himself the disciple of Wycliffe, and though such a profession was becoming daily more dangerous, scorning to curb his impetuous temper, he often allowed himself, in his denunciations of Popery, to be hurried away beyond the limits of prudence, and sometimes even of decency. In a short time he observed no measures towards the pope and the cardinals, and among other problems, proposed the following:—Whether the pope possessed more power than another priest? and whether the bread in the Eucharist or the body of Christ possessed more virtue in the mass of the Roman pontiff than in that of any other officiating ecclesiastic? One day, along with some of his friends, he drew a sketch of Christ's disciples on one side following, with naked feet, their master mounted on an ass; whilst on the other they represented the pope and the cardinals, in great state, on superb horses, and preceded as usual with drums and trumpets. These pictures were exposed in public; and it is easy to conceive the effect they were calculated to produce on an excitable and enthusiastic multitude. On another occasion Jerome, when arguing with a monk, lost his temper at being sharply opposed, and carried his violence so far as to fling his adversary into the Moldau. The monk reached the bank, but, as the chronicler of this incident naively observes, "he found when he touched the land that he had lost the thread of his argument, and was unable to pursue the discussion." These outbursts of temper soon involved Jerome in troubles from which a politic prudence would have saved him. At Vienna he was thrown into prison as a heretic, and was only released by the urgent intercession of his countrymen at Prague. Obtaining his freedom, he hastened to join his friend Huss in that city, and made himself conspicuous by the fiery zeal with which he inveighed against the abuses of the hierarchy, and the dissolute lives of the clergy. In 1415, when he heard that Huss had been thrown into prison by the Council of Constance, there to abide his trial, he set out for that city without a safe conduct, determined to plead his friend's cause. He arrived at Constance on the 4th April, and was there dismayed to learn that Huss was to be judged and condemned in secret, and would only leave his prison to die. A panic seized him, and he fled from the town as rapidly as he had come to it. Had he been arrested, he would undoubtedly have shared his master's fate in his master's company. Though without a safe-conduct he reached Überlingen undisturbed, and he might easily have reached Prague had he only held his tongue. But so many crosses and dangers had not increased his prudence. Wherever he went he declaimed openly and vehemently against the council. One day, at the table of a curé, who had invited him to his house as he was journeying through the Black Forest, he forgot himself so far as to call it "a school of the devil, a synagogue of iniquity." Some priests of the company, deeply offended, laid the matter before the governor of the nearest town, and Jerome was arrested and thrown into prison. Other accounts state simply that Jerome was seized at Hirschau by John of Bavaria, prince of Saltzbach, and kept in confinement by him till the council made known its wishes. Certain it is that he was carried in chains to Constance, and when in prison there, learned the terrible tidings of his friend's martyrdom. More than once he was brought to
trial, but his eloquence, learning, and logic, were more than a match for the most subtle accuser that could be suborned against him. Meanwhile, his confinement and the cruel indignities which he suffered, undermined his health, and when his energies of mind and body were totally worn out, he was induced on the 11th September 1415, to recant the heresies with which he was charged. A less rigorous imprisonment was the only reward of this apostasy. After languishing in the darkness of his dungeon for several months longer, he was once more brought before the council on the 26th May 1416. Triumphing over all his weaknesses he defended himself with a boldness, vehement energy, and learning, that filled even his accusers with wonder and admiration. He solemnly retracted his recantation: "Of all the sins," he said, "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 friend." His defence had inclined his judges to mercy; but with these words he sealed his own death-warrant. Four days later (May 30th, 1416) he was publicly burnt at the stake, and his ashes, like those of Huss, were collected and thrown into the Rhine.
Historians, Catholic and Protestant alike, vie with each other in paying homage to the heroic courage and apostolic resignation with which Jerome met his doom. Posterity has confirmed their verdict, and reveres him as a martyr to the truth, who, unwearied in life, and noble in death, has acquired an immortal renown for his share in the Reformation. In many respects far beyond his age, Jerome was identified with it in the weaknesses of his character. With a mind more variously endowed than Huss, he wanted the moral weight which gave his master so great an ascendancy over the minds of men. Bold, even to rashness, his courage was shown rather in bursts of furious vehemence than in the equable tenor of his life, and more than once failed him in critical moments. In this weakness he only reflected the turbulent and unruly spirit of the age he lived in, and gave a colour to the charge of his adversaries, that he always allowed his prejudices and passions to outrun his better judgment. This, without being absolutely true, is so to some extent. To no one was it more disastrous than to Jerome himself. For it not only led him to the stake, but it also undid much of the effect which might have been looked for from his labours and his martyrdom.