Jerome of Prague

JEROME OF PRAGUE. - Bohemian religious agitator, b. in Prague around 1380, d. at Constance on 30 May 1416. He pursued his studies at the University of Prague, where among his teachers was the well-known heresiarch John Hus (v.), of whom he was thereafter always a faithful follower and collaborator. From England, where he had gone to study in 1399, he brought back the most notable writings of the innovator John Wyclif (v.), such as the Dialogus and the Trialogus, which he then made the object of extensive propaganda at home and abroad. He taught in 1405 in Paris and subsequently at Heidelberg and Cologne, everywhere arousing bitter resentment on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities because of the boldness of his doctrines.

Having returned to Prague, he taught again in 1407 at that University, widely spreading there the Wycliffite and Hussite doctrines. Together with Hus he took a very active part in the struggle against the foreign element of the University, which ended with the exodus of that element following the so-called decree of "Kutná Hora" of 1409. Compelled nevertheless to leave Bohemia, because he had been excommunicated, he took refuge in Hungary at the court of Sigismund (1410), from which he then passed to Vienna, where a new excommunication reached him; here he was summoned to defend himself against the suspicion of heresy, but, having failed to appear, he was tried in absentia. After a brief return to Prague in 1412, he then betook himself to Kraków to the Grand Duke Witold, whom he followed in his expeditions into Russia and Lithuania.

Having in the meantime learned of the arrest of Hus, he went (1415) to Constance to defend his master, despite the latter's prohibition forbidding anyone to follow him; he was therefore preparing to return to Bohemia when he was arrested on the Swiss border at Hirschau and brought back to Constance.

Brought before the Council, he was charged with heresy and invited to recant. He did in fact recant, on 11 and 23 September, and abjured the doctrines of Wyclif and of Hus, rejecting the 45 articles of the former and the 30 of the latter and declaring that he submitted to the authority of the Church and of the Council. Nevertheless he subsequently returned to reaffirming his previous opinions, maintaining that he was in all things in conformity with Wyclif, from whom he dissented only regarding the Sacrament of the altar, and with his master Hus, thereby disavowing his recantation, which he said he had made incendi metu et non conscientia, though convinced that in this way he was sealing his own end. The Council in fact condemned him as a relapsed heretic to the stake, handing him over for execution to the secular arm.

G. of P. left no writing concerning his theories on religious matters, inasmuch as his activity amounts entirely to the simple propagation of Hussite doctrines without any personal addition; there remain, however, two philosophical dissertations of his of very relative importance: Positio de universalibus and Quaestio de universalibus.

Niccolò Del Re

GIROLAMO of PRAGUE. - Apostle of Lithuania and Camaldolese theologian, b. in Prague in the second half of the 15th century, d. at S. Matteo di Murano (Venice) on 17 July 1440.

Desirous of escaping the turmoil of his homeland, he went to Poland, where he was well received by King Ladislaus, who recommended him to Duke Witold of Lithuania; there, by means of sensational deeds, narrated by Enea Silvio Piccolomini (De statu Europae sub Friderico III imperatore), he succeeded in converting numerous pagans.

Dismissed, perhaps because of political interference, by Witold, he returned to Poland (1405), where he remained five years, preaching at court and preparing his oratorical trilogy, unpublished: Linea salutis aeternae (explanation of the Gospel); Quadragesima salutis aeternae (Lenten sermons); Exempla salutis aeternae (panegyrics). In 1408 he left Poland and, after long wandering, became a hermit at Camaldoli, together with his companion, the Pole Nicholas of Michael. This happened before 1413, because in that year he was elected prior of the sacred hermitage. In 1430 he visited the Holy Land and at Nicosia (Island of Cyprus) had a disputation with the dissident Greeks, confuting their errors. In 1431 he went, as definitor, to the abbey of S. Maria in Urano (Bertinoro) for the Chapter, where Ambrose Traversari (v.) was elected general, with whom he was frequently at odds, also because G. gladly accepted the invitation of the Fathers of Basel to go to the Council, where he was honorably hosted by the prior of the Charterhouse.

Of his numerous works, only 14 have been published by Mittarelli; the principal ones are: Sermo de corpore Christi contra Hussitas (Annales Camaldulenses, IX, Venice 1773, cols. 744-55); Tractatus contra haereticos Bohemos (ibid., cols. 755-802); De Graecorum erroribus (ibid., cols. 916-19); Sermo de vera et falsa paenitentia (ibid., cols. 919-40). G. is not a profound theologian, but he provides interesting information on the errors he combats.

Antonio Piolanti