1 P. : Benediotus, with the sole MS. But in Mon. i. 94 the correct reading Bernardus is given, as also in Hus, De Ecelesia (Hon. i. 239(£) and De Sex Erroribus (Mon. i. 1925), where the reference ” In quadam epistola ad Adam monacJium ” is added. See Migne, Op. Bernard, i. 95 C. This seems to be one of the few original references of Hus, and he was evidently very fond of it. Cf . Doc. 480.

2 So Gratian, loo. cit. — to whom for once Hus gives a reference. But the words are really from Basil, Regulce brevius tractates, Interrog. 114, ed. Garnier, ii. 631. At his trial in Constance Hus referred to the authorities here cited, and especially to the passage from Isidore (see Docwnenta, p. 214). Compare also Wyclif, De Ojfic. Regis, 110-11, from which Wyclif may have taken it. Cf. Hus’s use of ’ satraps ’ infra, p. 50, with comment.

’ i.e., Gratian, loo. cit. c. 101. Copied exactly. « Gal. i. 8.

DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP ZBINEK 49 are they that go back from Thy commands.1 In reference to my contention Jerome saith to Rusticus, Bishop of Narbonne : 2 Let none ofthebishops henceforth be moved to envy (which is a temptation of the devil} or be angry, if the presbyters occasionally exhort the people or preach in churches, or give their blessing, as hath been said, to the people : for when a man is refusing me these things I should say to him, ” He that doth not wish the presbyters to do what is commanded of God should tell us who is greater than Christ.” 3 Item, Bede on this text : * You shall find an ass tied and a colt with her : loose them and bring them to me. And if any man shall say anything to you, say ye that the Lord hath need of them ; saith : In this passage He mystically instructs doctors not to refrain from preaching, if they meet with opposition or are hindered from loosing sinners from their snares and bringing them to the Lord by confession of the faith. Rather should they constantly be hinting that the Lord hath need of such for the building up of His church. But who could write down all the sayings of the saints which, without exception, teach obedience to God rather than to men ? Tyrants set over against these sayings that in Matt, xxiii. : Whatsoever they say to you,

1 Ps. cxviii. (cxix.) 21. Quoted also in The Defence of the Articles of WycUf(Ul2~), Mon. i. 113a.

2 From Gratian, Pars i. dist. 95, C. 6. Judging by the readings, Hus would seem to have taken it from the Collectio Canonum of Anselm of Lucca. The epistle De Septum gradibu* ecclesice is not by Jerome, though usually attributed to him. This passage is quoted also by Hus in Mon. i. 112*, Defence of the Articles of Wyclif.

• P. : dicat, quod majus est, Xto ; read with Gratian and Anselm of Lucca : dicat, quis major est Christo.

• A mere paraphrase of Bede’s In Matt. Evang. c. xxi. in loo. (ed. Cologne, 1612, vol. v. p. 61 ; also eds. Migne and Giles). Quoted also in The Defence of the Articles of Wyctif (Mon. i. 112a).

do.1 But they are at once put to confusion by the prohibition which follows: According to their works, do ye not.2 God accordingly in Deut. xxiv. saith : Thou shalt do whatsoever the priests of the Levitical race shall teach thee, according to what I have commanded them.3 Mark, the Lord willeth that the obedient man should only obey His commands. Also this passage in First Peter, chapter ii. : Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear. Further on, it saith : also to the f roward;* inasmuch as5 a man would no more think of obeying the froward than of obeying the devil.6 Therefore both the will of God and Scripture teach that we only ought to obey our superiors in things lawful.

I based my case on these principles, when I pre ferred in the matter of preaching to obey God rather than the Pope, and the Archbishop and his other satraps7 who act contrary to this word of Christ’s: Go ye into the whole wor-ld, etc.8 I put my signature to this, that you may know how to meet the devil’s dogs.9

Monday, Urban’s Day, in Rogation week.

1 Matt, xxiii. 3. » Ib. • Deut. xxiv. 8. 4 1 Pet. ii. 18.

• P. : sed dbsit ; read with Mon. : quod absit.

’ Hus had forgotten for the moment the retort that might have been made from Wyclif s famous Deus debet obedire diabolo, with which he must have been familar as early as 1403.

7 ’ Satraps ’ is a favourite word with Wyclif for the higher clergy ; cf. Dialogues 25 1. 20; 32 1. 22; 113 1. 33; Cruciata (Polem. WJts. ii. 620) et passim.

8 Mark xvi. 15.

9 Diaboli canibus— possibly some pun intended on Dominicani, as often in the writings of the times.

IX. To JOHN XXIII., THE EOMAN PONTIFF l (September 1, 1411)

With the proper obedience to be rendered to the Church of Jesus Christ and His supreme pontiff.

Seeing that I am always ready to give an answer to the satisfaction of every man who asks concerning the faith I hold, I declare with a sincere heart that the Lord Jesus Christ is very God and very man; and that His whole gospel is established so firmly in the truth that not a jot nor tittle 2 of it can fail ; and finally that His Holy Church hath been so firmly founded on a firm rock that the gates of hell cannot in any wise prevail against it.3 I am ready in hope of the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself the Head, to bear the punishment of a dreadful death rather than to state by private judgment 4 aught else than His truth, or to declare what would be contrary to the will of Christ and His Church. For these reasons I con fidently, truthfully, and steadfastly assert that I have been wrongfully defamed to the Apostolic Seat by those heresy hunters.6 If they have given or are giving information that I taught the people that in the sacrament the material substance of the bread remains, it is a falsehood.6 It is a falsehood that I have said that when the host is elevated it is then the body of Christ, but when it is laid down it is not. It is a falsehood that a priest in mortal sin cannot consecrate. It is a falsehood that the lords may withdraw temporal goods from the clergy and

1 See tupra, pp. 40-41. 2 Matt. v. 18.

8 Matt. xvi. 18 ; loose. 4 Elective. * eemuli veritatis.

8 With the exception of this first point, Hus soon moved very far away from the positions which he here takes up.

that they need not pay tithes. It is a falsehood that indulgences are nothing. It is a falsehood that I have urged an actual attack on the clergy with the sword, It is a falsehood that I have preached or held any error or errors whatsoever or any heresy: or that I have seduced the people in any wise from the way of truth. It is a falsehood that I was the cause of certain German masters being expelled from Prague. As a matter of fact, they themselves were unwilling to enjoy the privileges of the foundation of the noble l University of Prague and declined to obey the lawful behests of the most serene prince and lord, Wenzel, King of the Romans, Emperor,2 and King of Bohemia : and supposing that the University of Prague would be unable to exist without their presence, they retired of their own free will to their own homes or wherever they pleased.3 Yet I admit that I appealed from the opinion of the veryreverend father in Christ, my lord Zbinek, to the Apostolic Seat, and finally from the suits instituted on malicious information by the holy Apostolic See. For those who were jealous of the truth, forgetting their own honour and salvation, maliciously suggested to the Apostolic Seat that in the kingdom of Bohemia, in the city of Prague, and in the marchionate of Moravia, errors and heresies were sprouting up and had affected the hearts of many to such an

1 Alma.

2 Semper Augustus. Wenzel had been deposed August 20, 1400. As he had never been crowned, he was never, strictly speaking, ” Emperor ” (Imperator). On July 21, 1411, Sigismund, his half-brother, had been unanimously elected King of the Komans. Wenzel had been won over by the promise that Sigismund would not during his lifetime seek the higher title.

1 Supra, p. 18.

extent that owing to the great number that had been infected by such errors it was necessary that a remedy by way of correction should be applied. Finally, they falsely suggested that the Bethlehem chapel was a private place, although it had been established by the ordinary as a parish living,1 while its destruction would impair in some sense God’s honour among the people, would thwart their spiritual progress, cause scandal, and greatly incense the people against its destroyers. Nevertheless, when summoned in person to the Roman Curia, I longed humbly to put in my appearance ; but because plots on my life were formed against me both within the kingdom and outside, especially by the Germans,2 I judged, on the advice of many friends, that it would be tempting God to risk my life when the interests of the Church did not demand it. Consequently I did not appear in person, but appointed advocates and proctors,3 desiring to obey the holy Apostolic See. On this account, Supreme Vicar of Christ, I humbly entreat the kindness of your Holiness that it may please you, for the mercy of Almighty God, graciously to exempt me from appearing in person and from the other obligations involved therein, on the ground that I am now in complete agreement with the aforesaid reverend father in Christ.4 The wit nesses to this are the most serene prince and lord, “Wenzel, King of the Romans and Bohemia, also the very reverend fathers and illustrious princes, “Wenzel, Patriarch of Antioch ; 6 my lord Conrad, Bishop of

1 By Gregory XII., at Lucca, May 15, 1408, in a rescript to Zbinek.

2 Cf. supra, p. 39. » Supra, p. 39. 4 I.e., Zbinek.

5 Wenzel Kralik, Dean of St. Peter’s, Wyschehrad, was appointed Patriarch of Antioch (in partibus), April 11, 1397. In 1413 he was

Olmiitz; the illustrious Prince Rudolph, Duke of Saxony, Elector of the Holy Empire ; the other princes, barons, and lords, and the most noble lord Stibor, ambassador of the most illustrious prince and lord, Sigismund, King of Hungary. For I offered to reply to each and all of the charges brought against me, even submitting myself to the hearing of the whole of them, and expressing my willingness, in case anything should be proved against me, to amend my errors by the punishment of fire, unless I should yield therein. And I am prepared to-day to face the whole University of Prague and an assembly of all the prelates and to give an answer to any charges, if any one can be found to bring them forward. But no one so far is willing to take sides against me, as being liable to retaliation, ac cording to the canon laws.1 Written at Prague with my own hand on St. Giles’s Day.

MASTER JOHN Hus, the least of the priests of your Holiness.

X. To THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS ( Without date : early in September 1411)

Your humble servant in your commands with all reverence !

Most reverend fathers in Christ, who bear the like ness of the apostles: whereas you have been placed as chief luminaries to enlighten each quarter of the appointed administrator of the diocese of Olmiitz on the transference of Conrad Vechta to Prague, and is reckoned among its bishops. He died on September 12, 1416, and must not be confused with the French Patriarch of Antioch (Cramaud) who played so prominent a part at Constance. See Eubel, Hierarchia Catholica, s.v.

1 See Gratian, Pt. ii. C. 2, q. 3, from the Pseudo-Isidore decretals.

t)£ATfi OF AECHBISHOP ZBINEIt 65 world, and whereas you have been placed in authority to take away the world’s crimes, to deliver souls from Satan’s jaws, and in Christ’s name to help the oppressed, I humbly flee to your protection, most reverend fathers, and fall at your feet. I am unable to bear the heavy burden that hath fallen upon your poor servant, and which I first broughtrupon myself at the time of the schism from Gregory XII. For then I strongly urged upon the princes, barons, and lords, in the interests of the unity of the Holy Mother Church, the duty of loyalty to the sacred College of Cardinals, and I steadfastly preached the same to clergy and people. Thereupon the very reverend father in Christ, Lord Zbinek, Archbishop of Prague, then the op ponent of the sacred College of Cardinals, in a public notice affixed to the church doors and signed by himself, prohibited all the masters of the University of Prague who had sided with the College of Car dinals, and in particular myself, whom he named, from exercising all and sundry priestly functions in his diocese, alleging as a cause that the masters of the University of Prague, acting on wrong informamation, had withdrawn from the most holy father in Christ, Gregory XII., and from obedience to the Apostolic Seat. But as the issue proves the deed, it afterwards came out that at the close of the Council of Pisa he approved, under compulsion, by his own act, the secession of the masters.1 Here, then, is the primal source of the indictment and charge which have been laid against me ! But seeing that the aforesaid sacred College of Cardinals pledged itself at that time to bestow many benefits on its sup porters, I therefore recall the promise then made ;

1 I.e., from Gregory. The reference is not to Leipzig.

66 BEFOBE THE DEATH OF ZBINEK and believing that it still holds good as a promise made by the pillars of the Church, I appeal on my bended knees to the kindness of your reverences that it may please you to give pious regard to a poor man like myself, and with your gracious assistance exempt me from the burden of a personal appearance and the other charges that are hanging upon such appearance.1 For I am innocent on those counts which my adver saries bring against me, the Lord Jesus Christ being my witness. I am prepared to face the noble Univer sity of Prague and all the prelates and all the people who have heard me, and to whom I now appeal: yea, and to give a full and clear account of the faith which I hold in my heart and profess by word and writing, even if the stake be lighted as I am heard.2 Concerning the above confession, the public instru ments, together with the formal declaration of the University of Prague, will fully inform your most gracious reverences. Written, etc. (sic).

1 Coniparitivnum dependentilus gravaminibin — a compressed way of putting the negative, ” the lack of such appearance when cited.”

2 We may own with Palacky and Stephen of Dolein (Antihussus, p, 383 in Fez. ; Thesaurus, vol. iv. part ii.), that Hus was a little too fond of these professions of willingness to die. See pp. 96, 119, and cf. Mon. i. 106a.

Part II. — From the Death of Zbinek to the Exile of Hus

(September 1411 — September 1412)

THE death of Zbinek was not the end of strife, only its trans ference to new spheres. Henceforth for Hus there was no peace ; but the constant struggle was not altogether the fault of his foes. In September 1411 Hus was engaged in a controversy with the Englishman, John Stokes, in defence of Wyclif. As, however, The Letters of Hus make no reference to this interesting if one-sided tournament, we pass it by (see Age of Hus, pp. 158 ff.). In the autumn of this year we mark the commencement of the activity of Michael the Pleader. Michael Smradaf of Deutsch Brod was at this time priest of St. Adalbert’s, Prague. Soon afterwards he entered the King’s service with a project for a reformed method of extracting gold from the diggings at Jilowy. According to his enemies, a tale endorsed by Mladenowic, he absconded with a part of the money ; more probably, on achieving nothing, he deemed it wise to retire. He returned with the office of papal ‘procurator de, causis fidei,’ whence the name Michael de Causis, or the Pleader, by which he is usually known. His attack upon Hus came about in this wise. In the spring of 1411 Hus, who had once more been appointed the special preacher before the Synod, dared to defend in a sermon, by quotations from Wyclif’s De Officio Regis— -to which for once he acknowledged his indebtedness — the harsh measures that Wenzel had taken against the clergy who sided with Zbinek. In a sermon to the people on All Saints’ Eve, he again denounced the vices, especially the avarice, of the priests, singling out certain scandals connected with masses for the dead. The clergy, led on by Michael, retorted by a lawsuit, to which Hus refers in the following appeal (infra, p. 59). We see how powerless at this time the clerical party were to restrain the Reformer in the Contra Occultum Adversarium (Hon. i. 135-43), a tract which Hus finished on

68 from the Death Of

February 10, 1412, and of which we shall hear again at Con stance. In one of his sermons to the people, undaunted by the lawsuit of Michael, Hus had again dwelt on the vices of the clergy. ‘Immediately after dinner’ he had been answered from the pulpit by some one whose name Hus does not give us. In his reply to this unknown disputant, Hus maintained the right of the secular authorities to control and correct scandalous priests, a matter which Rome always regarded with the utmost jealousy. He further defended his constant attacks upon the lives of the clergy from the charge that by this means he was destroying their order and honour. About this time, certainly before the outbreak of the dispute over indulgences in the May of 1412, Hus was also engaged in a controversy with a certain preacher of Pilsen (Replica contra Prcedicatorem Plznensem, Mon. i. 144-8), of whose views Hus speaks at length in the latter part of Letter XII.

The following Appeal to the Supreme Court of Bohemia is without date. According to a marginal note in the MS. it was written ‘shortly before Christmas MCCCCXII.,’ a mistake for 1411. It is characteristic of Hus’s intense nationalism that it should have been written in Czech ; a mark also of the practical drift of his reformation that he should dwell so strongly upon the duty of preaching. In part, of course, this last was an answer to the attempt of his enemies to silence him because of his excommunication.

XI. To THE SUPREME COUET OF THE KINGDOM OP BOHEMIA

(Undated: December 1411)

To the noble lords and magistrates of the Kingdom of Bohemia, and to the other lords now at Prague.

May it please the Lord God in His mercy to grant unto you furtherance in every good thing ! Dear lords, heirs of the sacred kingdom of Bohemia, I render thanks before your graces to my most gracious lord, King Wenzel, King of the Romans and of Bohemia, for his kind offices in having enabled me to

TO THE EXILE OF HITS 69 continue the preaching of God’s word and to persevere in the truth that I love : for having brought about a reconciliation between Zbinek, priest and Arch bishop of Prague, of sacred memory, and myself and the other masters, together with the princes, barons, and their advisers : and further for having given a decision in our behalf of which your graces will hear in detail.1 In defiance of this decision the clergy of the chapter of Prague have commissioned Michael, parish priest of St. Adalbert’s, to bring a lawsuit against me, and accordingly have drawn up against me an edict of excommunication. Of this, lest souls be offended, I am not afraid, but I am willingly and cheerfully enduring it. Yet am I grieved at this, that they are not preaching God’s word ; for I would not have the sacred offices interrupted and God’s people distressed. Even granting, beloved lords, that the chief blame rests on my shoulders, consider whether on that account it is right for the praise of the Lord God to be curtailed, and God’s people to be distressed by interdicts of this kind, and by the interruption of their religious duties. They have no warrant in the Holy Scriptures for interrupting worship whenever they like. They oppress and trouble the princes, barons, knights, and nobles, as well as the poor people, and summon them to take their trial outside the land,2 which is contrary to divine law and to the institutes of canon and civil law.3 Therefore, beloved lords and

1 The reference is to the decision of July 6 ; see supra, pp. 40-41.

• A reference to his own citation ; supra, p. 39.

• This is not correct. Properly by civil law a man’s judge was the judge ordinary of the defendant’s domicile. But Eome was regarded as the common domicile or fatherland of all men, and the Pope, therefore, as legally their ordinary. See Gratian, Pt. ii. C. 9, q. 3, c. 17.

60 FEOM THE DEATH OF ZBINEK heirs of the kingdom of Bohemia, strive to put an end to such calamities and to secure freedom for preaching God’s word to the people. As for myself, I am willing to stand my trial ; indeed, I have always been ready to do so, and actually appeared before priest Zbinek, of sacred memory, and his assessors, until at the instigation of the cathedral and parochial clergy of Prague he began to take the side of my enemies and managed to get me summoned to Rome for judgment. However, I wish to stand my trial before all the masters and prelates, and before your graces. I will gladly listen to the charges brought against me, plead my cause, and submit myself to judgment, as becomes a poor priest, provided that the person who is to charge me comes forward. Invariably I offered to do this, and his Majesty granted them this request ; but not a charge was ever brought against me, except my alleged disobedience. I am indeed aware that I refuse to obey either Pope or Archbishop when they forbid my preaching, for to cease preaching would be contrary to the will of God and my salvation. But I know, beloved lords, that even you do not obey the command which the late Pope * gave in the bull which was bought by them at a great price — viz., that there should be no preaching anywhere in chapels. Many of you have chapels in which there is preaching, and occasionally you have it in your own castles as well. I did not betake myself to the Pope’s Curia, for I had my proctors, whom they threw into prison,2 though

1 Alexander V. ; see giipra, p. 26.

• Supra, p. 53. The following passage from one of the Czech treatises of Hus will illustrate this letter. Hus tells us that when his proctors arrived in Rome they could obtain no hearing, though it should have been given to ’ pagan, Jew, heretic, and the devil

TO THE EXILE OF HITS 61 absolutely guiltless, men who would go through fire to face any one desirous of convicting me of heresy. However, I did not start on the journey, because plots were everywhere being laid against my life, so as to prevent my return to Bohemia. I trust, there fore, that your graces, along with their Majesties the King and Queen, will carry out the instructions which it shall please Almighty God to give you for the welfare of your kingdom. May He strengthen you in His grace ! Amen.

XII. To THE PEOPLE OP PiLSEN1 (Undated : March (?) 1412)

To the good — perseverance in virtue ; and to the evil — a holy knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ !

Dear lords and brothers in God’s grace, I hear to my great grief that there is a difference and dissension among you concerning divine truth, and that you who began well are doing badly, vexing God, losing yo\ur souls, showing a bad example to others, flinging away your integrity, and for the himself if he had come with the request.’ First one commission of cardinals was appointed who ’ obtained beautiful horses, silver cups, and precious rings from his adversaries. Then the Pope transferred the matter to others, and the same thing happened again. Of the latter commission some are dead, some in the prisons of Ladislaus. Then the Pope himself took up the matter, saying that he wished to decide it him self. ” All men,” he added, ” have got something from the case, but I have nothing.” But when my advocates pleaded for a hearing he refused, and asked for ” yellow knights,” of which Goose had had none, nor would he have given them if he had possessed them. So the Pope, •wanting to get these “knights ” (a gold coin), ordered my proctors to be thrown into prison ’ (Doc. 726 ; cf. Mon. i. 235, 332, and Doc. 191). 1 Written in Czech ; see sitpra, p. 58, for the circumstances.

62 FEOM THE DEATH OF ZBINEK insignificant gain of this world are holding of small moment the life eternal. Why do you not recall our Saviour’s words : What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world but suffer the loss of his soul ? and ivhat shall a man give in exchange for his soul ? 1 Why do you not recall that you were a good example to all Bohemia by your goodly concord, your attention to God’s word, and the restraint you exercised over a wrong spirit ? Oh ! how strangely you have forgotten that it was your holy union in that which is good that defended you from your enemies, enriched you, and marked you out before God and man ! The devil, God’s enemy, saw this, and took it so much to heart that he aroused the members of Antichrist and himself to drive divine grace and goodwill out of you. And now the unclean spirit has returned to the house from which he had been driven out. Taking seven spirits more wicked than himself, he has come back ; and the last state is made worse than the first.* He hath swept out of you the divine word, and restored to you frivolities, gambling, and other sins ! Where is the Shepherd of your souls ? How does He guide you ? Your wound hath not been pointed out. There is none to have pity on you, to pour in oil and wine and to bind up the wound3 inflicted on you by the thieves. Methinks you are attended by those who administer poison to you by making light of Holy Writ, and who pour in the oil, not of true love, but of flattery. You do not understand that the smooth tongued flatterer is an enemy, while he that chastises is a lover and a healer of wounds, although the sick man is angry and murmurs at the chastisement. 0 holy Gregory ! great Pope, thou sayest : He alone shall 1 Mark viii. 36-7. * Luke xi. 24-6. « Luke x. 34.

TO THE EXILE OF HITS 63 be my friend, who shall cleanse away my soul’s impurity.1 Dear saint, pray for the people of Pilsen, that in this matter they may be imitators of you ; and then, as of old, they will spread abroad God’s word, will love sermons preached against sins, will embrace their true leaders and reject ravening wolves. Then they will perceive that he who chastises leads them to God, while the flatterer separates them from God, and that while the flatterer nourishes with poison, the chastiser restores with wine. They will remember that they are soon to die, and that he who dies well will be in bliss, while the wretch that has defiled himself will fall into eternal fire.

0 beloved followers of Christ ! you know that a good name is better than precious ointment.2 What are you doing with your good name, which used to be of this kind : ” The people of Pilsen are above all peaceable, administer their municipality aright, love God’s word, drive out priest’s paramours and pro curers, have put down gambling, and show a good example to other cities.” Faithfully had God cared for you and had sown wheat among you, but the devil scattered tares,3 so that the wheat was choked. Oh ! in the name of the dear Lord God, in the name of His shameful and cruel martyrdom, in the name of your salvation, your honour, the correction of others and your own happiness, return, you that have strayed, return to the truth. You that are holy, become more holy still ! For the Lord God saith : The time is at hand : he that hurteth, let him hurt still : and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still : and he that is just, let him be justified still : and he that is holy, let hi/m fa

1 I have not discovered this passage

2 Eccles. vii. 1. * Matt. xiii. 39.

64 FROM THE DEATH OF ZBINEK sanctified. Behold, I come quickly, and My reward is with Me to render to every man according to his works.1 Thus saith the Lord Jesus. If you -willingly receive and keep His word, He will give you as your reward eternal life and boundless joy ; but if you do not receive it nor keep it, He will give you eternal damnation in eternal fire and in darkness among the devils, where there will be neither rest nor consolation. But I have confidence in His holy grace and cherish the hope (and that is why I write to you) that the good among you may persevere, and the rest may welcome you in all honour, become good fruit and be the sons of God, citizens of that city where there shall be no darkness nor sorrow, where you will behold God your Father and understand all things, and you will each love one another perfectly as your own self, and have the desire of your heart. May it please the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost to help you to attain unto that city, when you depart from Pilsen and its strifes, through the death of Christ and the aid of the Virgin Mary and all the saints. Amen.

After writing the above a letter reached me with the news that the priests were preventing the Holy Scriptures from being read in the mother tongue, Czech or German. Secondly, that a certain priest had said in a sermon 2 that no person, though he be guilty of a mortal sin, is a servant or son of the devil. Thirdly, that this priest had said in a sermon at a priest’s first mass that up to the time of the actual celebration he was a son of God; but from

1 Rev. xxii. 11.

2 See the Replica contra Prcedicatorem, Plznentem (Mon. i. 144). The arguments of this letter are expanded by Hus in that tract.

TO THE EXILE OF HUS 65 that moment, and in future when about to celebrate, he was the father of God and the creator of the Divine Body. Fourthly, that this same priest had said in his sermon that the worst priest was better than the best layman. If this is so, and these errors meet with no opposition from any one, it is a clear sign that you have wandered very far from the truth, especially those of you who have been instructed and are in possession of your reason. For, as St. John Chrysostom l saith in a gloss on these words of Christ, ” Fear ye not them that kill the body ” : 2 Christ hath shown by these words that not only is that man a traitor to the truth who speaks the truth fearfully ; but he also is a traitor to the truth who doth not sincerely defend it as it ought to be defended. For as a priest ought boldly to preach the truth which he hath heard from God, so a layman also, that is, a person who is not a priest, ought confidently to defend the truth, which he hath heard expounded from Holy Writ by a priest. If he doth not so defend, then he betrays the truth. This then is the great saint’s argument from Christ’s words, Fear ye not, etc. — namely, that every man, be he priest or no, who knows the truth ought to defend it to the death ; otherwise he is a traitor to the truth and to Christ as well.

Now, many of you know the truth and are aware that any man can recite, declare and, if a scholar, read the holy gospel either in Latin, as St. Mark wrote it ; or in Hebrew, as St. Matthew composed his

1 Gratian, Pt. ii. C. 11, q. 3, c. 86 ; loosely quoted. Really from the anomymous Auctor Opens Imperfecti in Matt. horn. 25, a favourite work with Gratian, Hus, and Wyclif, invariably attributed in the Middle Ages to Chrysostom. Of. p. 12, n.

2 Matt. x. 28.

66 FROM THE DEATH OF version ; or in Syriac, as St. Luke composed his ; or in Persian, as St. Simon preached and composed his ; or in Aramaic,1 as St. Bartholomew wrote ; 2 and likewise in other languages. How, then, can you suffer the priests to prevent people reading the holy gospel in Czech or German ? Then as to the second point, are you ignorant of the fact that it is impossible for a man to serve both God in virtue and the devil in sin ? I know you have heard Christ’s words : No man can serve two masters ; 3 and again : You cannot serve God and mammon. You know also that St. Peter saith : By whom a man is overcome, of the same also he is the slave.* Christ also saith: Whosoever committeth sin i# the servant of sin.5 St. Paul also writes to the Romans : You ivere the servants of sin.6 Why, then, knowing as you do these testimonies of Scripture, do you suffer a priest to preach that no one, though he be living in mortal sin, is a servant of the devil ? I know also that you have heard the words of the Lord Jesus that the tares are wicked sons which the devil hath sown in the world ; 7 also those which He addressed to evil men : Ye are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do,8 and He brings forward the cause in these words : Because you cannot hear my word, therefore are ye of your father the devil.9 St. John the Apostle also

1 Judaioe.

2 See the tale of Eusebius (H.E. v. 10) of a certain Pantsenns of Alexandria who went to preach the gospel to the Indians and found that the apostle Bartholomew had left them St. Matthew’s gospel written in Hebrew characters. Hus repeats this argument in his De Arguendo Clero (Mon. i. 150a), which, possibly, was written at this time, and not as is usually assumed, in 1408.

• Matt. vi. 24. • Bom vi. 17. 8 John viii. 44.

4 2 Pet. ii. 19. ’ Matt. xiii. 38-9. » Ib. viii. 43.

6 John viii. 34.

TO THE EXILE OF HUS 67 by the Holy Spirit saith : Little children, let no man deceive you : he that doth justice, is just as Christ is just : but he that committeth sin, is of the devil. Afterwards lie saith : In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the devil : whosoever is not just, is not of God.1 You see, therefore, that any one who commits a sin unto death, is of the devil and a son of the devil. Why, then, do you suffer a heresy to be preached contrary to these holy sayings of Christ ? Be assured that a man who preaches thus is a servant and son of the devil and is worse than the humblest layman that is good. Nor is that priest the father of God ; for God would then be the son of this priest ; and yet this priest is a son of the devil. God, therefore, would be a son of the devil also ! Nor, again, is a priest who preaches and holds this error a creator of the Divine Body; but he is the author of a great heresy. Granted that with the help of all his associates he procreate a nit, then I will admit that they are creators ! It is an impossibility, though it were tedious to prove it in this letter. 0 brave Christians ! are you all dead that you allow errors to be bandied about and God’s word driven into a corner ? Scorn them, and let not the devil rule over you. May the Lord God herein be your Helper, who alone can be, and is, Creator. Amen.

Within a few weeks of writing this letter to the people of Pilsen, Hus became involved in a controversy of wider import On September 9, 1411, and again on December 2, John XXIIL, in the throes of his struggle with Ladislaus, the King of Naples, and Gregory XII., issued bulls preaching a crusade against his foes. The same indulgences were offered as for a campaign in Palestine to all those who should take up arms, or who bought

1 John iii. 7-8, 10, Czech.

68 Feom the Death Op Zbinek

’ suitable men ’ to fight for them. As with the later Tetzel, the indulgences, no doubt, were duly qualified with the-’ usual limita tions, which not only Hus, but the Council of Constance, in their attack upon John seem to have overlooked. In theory they were restricted to the ‘truly penitent.’ In practice, for men do not sin in Latin, John’s indulgences were regarded as the selling permission to sin, or the buying of pardon for past transgressions. In some cases priests of no conscience and evil life used the opportunity to wring out in the confessional money and profit for themselves, a practice which Archbishop Albik tried to check.

In the May of 1412, Master Wenzel Tiem, Dean of Passau, who in the previous December had been appointed agent for the dioceses of Salzburg, Magdeburg, and Bohemia, arrived in Prague and opened his sale. The traffic was soon in full swing, money chests set up in the Cathedral, the Teyn Church, and the Wy.schehrad, middlemen doing a good trade for country parishes, where payments were often made in kind. Hus, like Luther — who himself points out the similarity of their circum stances — at once entered the lists. For neither Luther nor Hus seems to have recognised how old the custom was. Hus looked upon it as a complete innovation, and forgot his own early experiences. He placarded church doors with his theses, and thundered against ‘Antichrist’ in the Bethlehem Chapel, and among ’ the artists ’ of the University. As ’ the German vicars had received the bull and read it aloud ’ in their churches, the Czechs at once rallied to the cause of Hus, and the national feud was revived in a new form.

In his proceedings against the indulgences, Hus seems to have been from the first more conscious of his opposition to the authorities than was Luther. News of the coming sale had already driven him to the bold step of answering publicly in the Bethlehem Chapel, in a legal deed drawn up by a notary — ’ because people are come to give greater credence to such a document ’ — three questions that had been sent to him (March 3, 1412). The questions and the answers of Hus go to the root of the controversy : ’ Whether a man must believe in the Pope, and whether it is possible that a man can be saved who does not really confess to a priest.’ As regards the first, Hus appears at this time repeatedly to have preached that ’ we can well be saved without a Pope.’ We see the same spirit of conscious opposition, so different from the early movement in Germany,

TO THE EXILE OF HUS 69 in the account Hus has given us of an interview he had with Wenzel Tiem shortly after the latter arrived at Prague. ’ I know well,’ he writes, ’ the difference between the apostolic commands and the commands of the Pope. So when I was asked by the legates of John, in the presence of Archbishop Albik, whether I were willing to obey the apostolic commands, I answered : “I desire with all my heart to obey the apostolic commands.” Thereupon the legates, holding apostolic and papal commands to be interchangeable, thought that I was willing to preach to the people the crusade against Ladislaus. So the legates said : ” He is willing you see, lord Archbishop, to obey the commands of our sovereign Pope.” So I said to them : ” Sirs, understand me. I said that I am willing with all my heart to obey apostolic commands, but by apostolic commands I mean the doctrines of the apostles of Christ. So far as the commands of the Pope agree with the commands and doctrines of the apostles, and are after the rule of the law of Christ, so far I am heartily prepared to render them obedience. But if I see anything in them at variance with* this, I will not obey, even if you kindle the fire for the burning of my body before my eyes.” ’

In this spirit, on June 7, 1412, in spite of the opposition of the eight doctors of the theological faculty, led by ’ the friend of his youth,’ Stephen Palecz, Hus delivered his disputation against indulgences in the large hall of the University. This was his answer to what he called the determination of the friars to pro claim that ’ the Pope is a God on earth.’ His arguments, though aptly applied to the disputes of Gregory and John, need not detain us. When not copied from Gratian they are adopted, as Loserth has shown, with verbal fidelity from three tractates of Wyclif, a circumstance which the doctors were not slow to point out in their reply.

The counterblast of the theological faculty was soon forth coming. Once more they condemned the forty-five articles of Wyclif, and, with the sanction of Wenzel, in whose presence the articles were read (July 10), forbade their teaching in Bohemia under penalty of expulsion. To these they now added six pro positions from Hus. Hus had previously challenged their judg ment as regards two of the condemned articles in a dissertation, again taken, word for word, from Wyclif. The two articles were those which touched him closest, for they dealt with the duty and right of preaching, a subject in which, aa his Letters show,

70 FROM THE DEATH OF ZBINEK he was always intensely interested. He followed this up by a Defence of Disendowment (De Ablatione Temporalium, a, Clericis), of which we shall hear at Constance. This treatise was taken in the main from Wyclif’s De Ecclesia. A third tractate in the same year, nominally on Tithes, contains an uncompromising defence of the weakest point of Wyclif’s system. This was the doctrine of dominion founded on grace, the assertion that office, whether civil or spiritual, lapsed with mortal sin. Hus had moved far since his letter of the previous year to John.

Three days after his dispute in the Carolinum with the theo logical faculty over the indulgences, Hus wrote the following interesting letter to the King of Poland. The letter not only breathes intense hatred of the whole system and its abuses, but is also an illustration of how far-reaching was the influence of Hus. The Slav races, as the clergy complained, * through Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, and Moravia’ rallied to a cause which was almost as much national as religious.

Ladislaus (Jagiello), to whom the letter was addressed, is an interesting character. Originally he was the semi-savage chief of Lithuania, a state at that time at the height of its power, holding possession even of many Russian cities. His mother was a Christian, but Ladislaus himself grew up a pagan. But he was quite willing to turn Christian to secure his marriage with Jadwiga (Hedwig), the heiress of Poland. On his marriage and baptism (1386) he took the name of Ladislaus (Wadyslaw) and transferred his capital from Wilno (Vilna) to Cracow. This step, together with their compulsory conversion to the religion of their Prince, displeased the Lithuanians ; but after a short struggle the combined forces of Lithuania and Poland were turned against the Teutonic Knights, whom they overthrew in the disastrous battle of Tannenberg, in Prussia (July 15, 1410). Jagiello was thus looked upon by all Slavs as their champion against the encroachments of the Germans, and probably ranked high on this account in Hus’s thoughts. Hus would also remember that in 1397 Jadwiga had established a college at Prague for poor students from Lithuania. It was one of the grievances of the Czechs that this college had become filled with Germans. Jagiello, though on his marriage he could neither read nor write, yet showed his interest in learning by founding in 1397-1400 a University at Cracow. So successful was his rule that on the death of Jadwiga (1399), though in reality his rights to the crown of Poland had lapsed,

TO THE EXILE OF HUS 71 the Poles continued him in his position. Like all Lithuanians, he was opposed to the claims of Rome, or any attempts to make mischief in Lithuania by ousting on her behalf the Orthodox Church. This sense of opposition would form a further link between Hus and himself. We must also remember that shortly before this date Jerome of Prague had visited Lithuania, and after allowing his beard to grow — a little matter that was never for given — had preached before its duke, Witold, Jagiello’s cousin. Jagiello, after a most successful reign, died in 1434, and is buried in the Cathedral of Cracow, surrounded by the successors in the dynasty he founded.

XIII. To LADISLAUS, KING OF POLAND

(June 10, 1412 l)

May the grace of Jesus Christ be granted to you for the ruling of your people and the attaining of the life of glory !

Most serene prince, it hath brought me great joy and comfort to hear that your Majesty in the provi dence of Almighty God hath come to an agreement with the most illustrious King Sigismund.2 The people and myself are united in the prayer that God may direct 3 the lives of both of you in the way of righteousness, and your subjects as well. To this end, most illustrious prince, it appears to be a prior condition alike for your Majesty, for his excellence King Sigismund, and for the other princes, that the heresy of simony should be removed from your dominions. But is it possible to expect its banish ment when it hath spread its poison so widely that

1 Marginal note in MS.

2 On this peace of Sigismund, the Poles, and the Teutonic Knights, see Aschbach, Kaiser Sigimmd (Hamburg, 1845), i. c. 16, and the letter of Sigismund (March 28, 1412) in ib. i. 437.

• P, : vita … dirigatw ; H. : vitam , . . dirigat,

72 FEOM THE DEATH OF ZBINEK scarcely anywhere can clergy or people be found that have not been laid low by this heresy of simony ? “Who is honest enough to present to a see for the honour of God, for the salvation of the people, and for one’s own salvation? Who is so disinterested as to accept a see, a parish living, or any other benefice under the constraint of these three motives ? I would that there were many to refuse them as a form of bondage and human bribery ! But are not the words of Jeremiah ful filled : From the least of them even to the greatest all follow hard after covetousness, and from the prophet even to the priest all make a lie?1 Is the disciple of Christ wide of the mark when he says : All seek the things that that are their own, not the things that are Jesus Christ’s ? 2 It is the voice of the Church weeping, because the gold is become dim and the finest colour is changed? Once the priesthood was like gold aflame with love and burnished with virtues ; but now it hath become earthy and blackened, as Bernard saith.4 The words of our Saviour are fulfilled: Iniquity shall abound — that is, among the clergy — and charity shall grow cold6 among the people. Woe, therefore, to him that weeps not for such a time ! Most illustrious prince, it is because they hear a message like this that a simoniac, pomp-loving, luxurious, and unrestrained clergy charge me with defamation of their order and heresy-mongerings. But shall I keep silence ? God forbid ! Woe is me

1 Jer. vi. 13. 2 Phil. ii. 21. s Lam. iv. 1.

4 P. : ut ait Bernards ; H. : ut ait Bene impletur — i.e., ut ait Jeremias. I cannot put my finger on this passage. But similar statements in St. Bernard abound.

• Matt, xxiv, 13.

TO THE EXILE OF HUS 73 if I keep silence ! It is better for me to die than not to resist the wickedness which would make me a partner in their crimes and in their hell. May it please the King of glory to preserve your Majesty from these things for the holy government of your people !

MASTER JOHN Hus, an unprofitable priest of Christ.

The opposition of Hus to the indulgences separated the Reformer for ever from his former friends Stanislaus and Palecz. The first cause of their ’ backsliding like a crab,’ as Hus termed it, is somewhat obscure. In the autumn of 1408, in furtherance of Wenzel’s policy, an embassy was despatched to the Pisan cardinals. It consisted of John Cardinalis of Reinstein, the usual envoy of Wenzel, Marik Rwacka, Stanislaus of Znaim, and Stephen Palecz. The two last, for some reason or other — perhaps because of their well-known sympathy with the Wyclifists — incurred the suspicion of Cossa. They were arrested at Bologna, ‘deprived of their goods, and imprisoned.’ Hus, Jesenicz, and Christian Prachaticz at once laboured for their release. At length, after petitions from the University (December 8, 1408) and from the Pisan cardinals themselves (February 12, 1409), this was procured, though not before Palecz was robbed of ‘207 gold knights.’ They retuned to Prague to find the University wrecked by the disruption. Whether this last event, or some subtle influences brought to bear upon them in their imprisonment, or the greater conservatism of maturer years, led to a change of view, we know not. Certain it is that they slowly drifted from alliance with Hus into the bitterest opposition. They first became what Hus called ’ Terminists’ — i.e., Nominalists — then by a natural sequence the persecutors of their old associates. But we must beware of doing them the injustice of supposing that the drift was on their side only. Nor must we forget that by Hus’s expulsion of the Germans from the University the triumphant Czechs, no longer united by a common hatred, had now opportunity to discover unsuspected lines of cleavage among themselves.

On the outbreak of the dispute over the indulgences, Palecz, for the moment, had wavered. A meeting on the matter was held.

74 FEOM THE DEATH OF ZBINEK at the rectory of Christian Prachaticz. ’ If Palecz is willing to confess the truth,’ said Hus, ’ he will remember that he was the first to give me with his own hand the articles of indulgence, with the remark in writing (manu) that they contained palpable errors. I keep the copy to this day as a witness. But after he had consulted with another colleague he went over to the other camp. The last word I said to him — for I have not spoken to him since — was this : ” Palecz is my friend, Truth is my friend ; of the two it were only right to honour Truth most.” ’

The theologians, in fact, were unaminous that it was not their business to inquire into the value of the apostolic letters, but ’ as obedient sons to obey, and fight those who opposed.’

Palecz and Stanislaus were not the only foes whom Hus at this time was driven to encounter. In Letter XIV. we are intro duced to his most unsparing literary opponent, Stephen, the prior of the Carthusian monastery of Dolein, near Olmiitz, in Moravia. According to Stephen’s own statement, Hus and he at one time had been ’ men of one mind who had taken sweet meat together’ ; but they had long since drifted apart. As early as 1408 we find Stephen refuting Wyclif’s Trialogus in his In Medullam Tritici (“The Marrow of Wheat ‘V, dedicated to Kbel, whom we have already met (supra, p. 12). In this work the references to Hus are few and slight, but his condemnation of Wyclif, whom Stephen recognises as the master, is unsparing.

The following letter of Hus was written in the summer of 1412. ’ To which writing,’ Stephen tells us, ’ when the purport had been told me, and I had seen and ascertained it for myself, I composed the following brief answer ’ — to wit, that he would reply at length when a suitable opportunity arose. A few months later (autumn 1412) Stephen fulfilled his promise by bringing out his Antihussus, dedicated to Stanislaus of Znaim, in the pre face of which he incorporated this letter of Hus. The work ends with a prayer and a curse : ’ Holy Mary and all saints pray for us that the truth may be confirmed. Thou muck-sack (sacce) Wyclif pray for thy own that falsehood be condemned. Amen.’ In September 1414, to anticipate his further writings, Stephen brought out his Dialogus Volatilis inter Aucam et Passerem, sen Mag. ffus et Stephanum, dedicated to the Bishop of Leitomischl, while in 1417, after Hus’s death, he wrote his long Epistle to the ffussites. (All the above works are in Pez, Thesaurus, iv. pt. ii)

To the Exile of Hus 75

XIV. To THE BRETHREN OF THE MONASTERY OF DOLEIN, IN MORAVIA

(Undated : summer 1412)

To the honourable and religious inmates (domi/nis) of the convent in Dolein, beloved brothers of Christ, Master John Hus, a worthless servant in Christ.

May the love of God and the peace of Christ abound in your hearts by the Holy Spirit given unto you!

Worshipful sirs, I have heard how fiercely Dom Stephen with much abuse is assailing not only myself, but those also who hear Christ’s sermons from my lips. If with just cause, he will receive the reward of justice ; but if without cause, the reward of injustice from the Lord, Who knows the hearts of men. Therefore to you who are brothers in’ Christ and bound to me by ties of love, though separated by distance and unknown to me by sight, I am sending this heartfelt entreaty for the sake of your salvation and not in self -excuse (for to me it is of the slightest moment that I be judged of men) : believe nothing that is preached about my holding or de siring to hold any error that is contrary to Holy Scripture or to morality : I do not say, ” though Wyclif ,” but ” not even though an angel came down from heaven and taught otherwise than what the Scripture hath taught.” l For my soul abhors the errors they ascribe to me. But in refusing to obey

1 Gal. i. 8. Hus was very sensitive about his dependence on Wyclif. Cf. his answer in 1414 (Doc., 184) : ’ Whatever truth Wycliff has taught I receive, not because it is the truth of Wyclif, but because it is the truth of Christ ’ ; and cf. Mon. i. 264a. In the Medulla of Stephen the dependence of Hus on Wyclif is clearly recognised,

76 FROM THE DEATH OF ZBINEK the ruling of superiors, while offering no resistance to the power which is of the Lord God, I had the teaching of Scripture on my side, and especially the word and deed of the apostles, who, against the will of the priests, preached Jesus Christ as Lord, saying : We (night to obey God rather than men.1 As to my not appearing at the Curia when summoned, there are many reasons for this.2 In the first instance, when summoned I desired to depart ; but my own proctors as well as those of the other side wrote to me, urging me not to appear and uselessly sacrifice my life. It would also mean that I should neglect my preaching of God’s word among the people and risk my life to no purpose. For a man to be judged by one whose open sins he attacks is to hand himself over to death. Yet if I had any reasonable ground for supposing that by my appearance and by my death I could be of service to some for their salvation, I would willingly appear, Jesus Christ helping me.

But, alas ! who can be of any service in these days in the midst of a people given over to greed, pride, and hardness of heart, who have turned away their hearing from the truth and are turned unto fables ? 8 May it please God Almighty to preserve His holy Church and yourselves from the wiles of Antichrist, and to commend me to your kind regard as a help to my happiness ! Dom Stephen, lay aside the sus picions which I hear you bear against me, until you are fully enlightened by the facts. You have read Christ’s words : Judge not, that you may not be judged :

1 Acts v. 29.

• Supra, pp. 39-40. Stephen Dolein dwells on this matter in his Dialogus, pp. 464-7, and claims that Hus had shown no just cause why he should not have gone to Rome,

• 2 Tim. iv. 4,

TO THE EXILE OF HITS 77 condemn not, and you shall not be condemned.1 And yet you judge me, and in your book you condemn the soul of Wyclif.2 Where is revelation, or Scripture, or personal acquaintance, that you condemn a man who stands at the bar of God ? Would it not suffice you to condemn the man’s words, and to wait for his condemnation by God’s word or Holy Scripture ?

Though deserted by his former friends, Hus was not alone. ‘Women without number and powerful nobles’ rallied to his cause, while the people, under the lead of that stormy petrel of reform, Jerome of Prague, once more took matters into their own hands. As usual in such cases, liberty speedily degenerated into licence. On June 24, 1412, Woksa of Waldstein drove up with a cart in which sat two harlots, or two students dressed up as harlots, ‘with the papal bulls tied round their breasts.’ An armed mob conducted the procession through the streets and

1 Luke vi. 37.

2 In a sermon before the Synod and in the presence of Zbinek (pro bably in June 1408), Hus had stated: ‘I could hope that my soul should be where rests the soul of Wyclif.’ His enemies added that he had claimed that Wyclif was a ’ Catholic doctor,’ but Hus argued that •Catholic’ cannot be expressed in Czech, and therefore he could not have said it. This famous wish of Hus was never forgiven or forgottenIt forms part of the charge of the Englishman Stokes, to which Hus replied as follows : ’ I will not grant that Wyclif is a heretic, I will not affirm a negative, but I hope that he is not, since in doubtful matters one ought to choose the better part. Wherefore, I hope that Wyclif is among the saved.’ At Constance Hus had to deal with the matter again. The reason for the heat with which the question was debated lay in the fact that Wyclif had never been condemned or even excommu nicated during his lifetime. Was it possible, then, to condemn him ’ in anima ’ ? We have a curious illustration of the importance of this question in the Lollard Purvey’s Remonstrance, p. 133 (see my Age of Wyclif, i. 306), as also in the famous Oxford forgery of October 5, 1406 (ib. i. 241-2). Wyclif, we must remember, was not formally con demned until the Council of Constance (May 4, 1415), unless, indeed, we count the curious Lateran Council of February 2, 1413. The reference to Dolein’s ’ book ’ is a general reference to the Medulla, Tritioi, whose other and more significant title was Antiurikliffus.

78 FROM THE DEATH OF ZBINEK burnt the bulls and pardons in the market-place of the New Town, ‘about the hour of vespers.’ In the following August the students seized two pardoners at their trade. ’ Get out, you liars,’ cried Jerome ; ’ the Pope your master is a lying heretic.’ A Carmelite friar ’ selling relics for the building of a church ’ was seized as he sat, ’ kicked out ’ of the church, and his table overturned, ’ relics and all,’ ’ You are palming off dead men’s bones,’ shouted the people, ‘you are hoodwinking Christians.’

A more serious riot was the affair of the Three Martyrs. In spite of Wenzel’s edict — perhaps before it was officially pro mulgated—on July 10 three artisans cried out in a church that the indulgences were lies : ’ John Hus has taught us better than that.’ They were condemned to death. Hus, attended by a vast throng, demanded a hearing from the magistrates, and declared : ’ Their fault is mine ; I will bear the consequences.’ To still the tumult evasive answers were given ; but later in the day the prisoners were hurriedly executed, according to Hus, without the King’s orders. The excitement was intense. Women ’ dipped their handkerchiefs in the blood ’ of the martyrs, whose bodies, shrouded in white linen, were borne in procession to the Beth lehem Chapel. There amid the chanting of the hymn, “Isti sunt sancti,” and ’ the mass of martyrs,’ they were buried ’ in the name of God.’ To all this, though not present himself at the funeral, Hus was a consenting party. The civil authorities deemed it well to disclaim the riot, and issue an order that no one should preach against the indulgences. But no attempt was made to punish its leaders, or even deprive Woksa for his buffoonery of his place at Court.

‘That Luther,’ laughed Leo, when he heard of his outbreak against Tetzel, ’ has a pretty wit.’ In the case of Hus, however, John was of a different mind. The Pope scarcely needed the formal complaint of the clergy of Prague, stirred up by Michael the Pleader, against ‘that son of Belial, the Wyclifist Hus, a despiser of the keys ’ (May 1412). So he committed the case to Cardinal Peter Stefaneschi of St. Angelo, with instructions to proceed without delay. Stefaneschi at once pro nounced upon Hus the great curse (July 1412). Hus was declared cut off from ’ food, drink, buying, selling, conversation, hospitality, the giving of fire and water, and all other acts of kindness.’ If within twenty-three days he did not yield, he

TO THE EXILE OF HITS 79 was to be excommunicated ‘in all churches, monasteries, and chapels,’ with the usual custom of ’ lighted candles, extinguished and thrown to the ground.’ Places which gave him shelter were to be subject to interdict. ‘Three stones were to be hurled against his house as a sign of perpetual curse.’ In a second bull the Bethlehem Chapel was ordered to be razed to the ground, and the person of Hus to be delivered up and burned.

Hus replied by a dignified appeal, which he read in the Bethlehem, from the Pope to ’ the supreme and just Judge who is neither influenced by gifts (supra, p. 60, n.) nor deceived by false witnesses.’ He consoled himself with the memories of Chrysostom and Grosseteste. His hope lay in the meeting of a General Council. Meanwhile he exhorted the people to put their trust in neither Pope, Church, nor prelates, but in God alone. As for himself — a matter which told heavily against him at Constance — he showed how little he cared for the censures of Rome by continuing as before his public preaching, and his administration of the sacraments (see p. 166, n. l).

The excommunication and attendant interdict soon produced its effect in Prague. ‘The people,’ complained Hus, ‘did not show sufficient courage to bury their dead in unconsecrated ground, and baptise their children themselves.’ Riots broke out on every hand. On September 30 Jerome and others ’ ducked friar Nicholas ’ in the Moldau. On October 2 a counter-attack was made on the Bethlehem Chapel, chiefly, says Hus, by the Germans, at that moment the dominant party in the Town Council : ’ What madness ! … what German audacity ! … they are not allowed to pull down a bakehouse. The temple of God where the bread of God’s word is distributed they wish to destroy.’ But the Czechs rallied to their national cause, and prevented the outrage, in spite of the archers. But elsewhere the opponents of Hus were victorious. In the University Stanislaus of Znaim and Stephen Palecz were inveighing against their former friend in the presence of Duke Ernest of Austria. (October 1412). Nor was Hus helped by the formal proof of his ally John of Jesenicz, doctor of canon law, that the excom munication was illegal (December 18, 1412).

But we are slightly anticipating. Hus, in fact, had already left Prague, on the advice, or rather orders, of Wenzel. Thia step, as the following letter shows, the Reformer was at first unwilling to take. But Wenzel, who was placed in an awkward

80 FBOM THE DEATH OF ZBINEK position and feared the calling in of the secular arm, was per sistent. So Hus left Prague — his enemies claimed that he was expelled — ‘that a Synod for settlement might be held with more chance of success.’

The date of Hus’s exile, and therefore of the following letter, is somewhat uncertain. He seems to have left Prague first in the August of 1412, but a few months later, on his own statement, returned and preached. He was certainly absent in the October, when the attack was made on the Bethlehem (see infra, p. 94). But his final departure must have taken place in December 1412, for on the 14th of that month the secular arm was called in by the papal authorities. From the other letters which follow, and which were evidently written in the autumn of 1412, we are inclined to date the following as written before the first departure. Nicholas Miliczin was the colleague of Hus at the Bethlehem. He had taken his bachelor’s degree in 1401, his master’s in 1406. He is probably the Nicholas to whom Hus refers on pp. 236 and 274. Of Master Martin nothing is known, unless indeed he be the Master Martin, ‘his disciple,’ of later letters (see infra, pp. 149, 235, 274).

XV. To MASTERS MARTIN AND NICOLAS MILICZIN

(Undated: August (?) 1412)

Peace be unto you — that peace which he that seeks shall not have with the’world, the flesh, and the devil. In the world, saith the Saviour, you shall have distress;1 but if you are jealous for that which is good, who is there to hurt you ? I have a jealousy for preaching the gospel, but I am careworn, because I know not what I am to do.

I have pondered over our Saviour’s words in the gospel of John, chapter x. : The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep. But the hireling and he that is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, eeeth the wolf comi/ng and leaveth the sheep, and fiieth :

1 John xvi. 33.

TO THE EXILE OF HUS 81 and the wolf catcheth, and scattereth the sheep.1 I have also pondered over another passage in Matt. x. : When they shall persecute you in this city, flee unto another? This, then, is the precept or promise of Christ. I am in a strait betwixt two, and know not how I ought to act.

I have pondered over the epistle of the blessed Augustine to Bishop Honoratus,3 who sought guidance in a similar case. Here is the reply and conclusion of Augustine : Whosoever fleeth so that his flight doth not leave the Church without the necessary ministry, is acting according to the Lords precept or promise. But he that fleeth so as to withdraw from Christ’s flock the nourish ment which supports its spiritual life, is an hireling, who seeth the wolf coining and flieth, because he cared not for the sheep. Seeing, beloved brother, that you have consulted me, this is my genuine opinion and the answer which true love 4 moves me to send : but I do not restrict you to this view, if you can find a better. Nevertheless, we cannot find out any better how to act in these difficulties than by praying to our Lord God to pity us : for we 5 have obtained the power both to will and to do this very thing, to wit, that all the wise and holy men of God should not forsake the churches : and in the teeth of opposition we have not fallen away from our own purpose. Thus Augustine.

1 John x. 11-12. 2 Matt. x. 23.

• Ed. Maur, Ep. 228 (vol. ii. p. 830-35). Written during the irrup tion of the Vandals in 428 or 429 A.D. The unusual accuracy of the quotations in this letter would lead me to the conjecture that the editors of the Monumenta (1558), where alone it is found, did a little “editing” of the MS. after their wont.

4 Mon. : recta caritate. Ed. Maur : et certa,

5 Mon. : qui id iptum ut scilicet ecclesias non detererent … meruerunt. Ed. Maur : quod ipsum, ut scilicet Dei ecclesiat non deterent, Dei dono … meruerunt.

82 Feom the Death of Zbinek

Let me know, therefore, if you can rest satisfied with this advice of Augustine ; for I am urged by my conscience not to be absent and thus prove a stumbling block, although the necessary food of God’s word be not wanting to the flock. On the other hand, the fear confronts me that my presence, by the wicked device of an edict, may become a pretext for the withdrawal of that food — that is, the Holy Communion, and the other things pertaining to salvation.

Therefore, let us humbly pray that it may please Almighty God to instruct us how I, poor wretch ! am to act in the present crisis, so as not to stray from the paths of righteousness. It is beautiful advice that the blessed Augustine gives in that letter. For there he clearly lays down in the special case brought to his notice that it is possible to flee lawfully. He mentions St. Athanasius l as an example. Supposing the lives of all were in peril, then perhaps it would be their duty to arrange for some one to take to flight who 2 would be most useful for the welfare of the Church in the days to come, and thus perhaps carry out, etc.3

1 Infra in same letter : ’ the holy Athanasius who was specially sought after by the Emperor Constantius, while the Catholic people who remained in Alexandria were in no wise deserted by the other ministers.’

2 quis. Either read qui, or quit is used elliptically for aliqvem qui.

• facta forte, etc. There is no MS., only the ed. 1558 (Monumenta). Perhaps we should read facta sorte, ’ arrange by casting lots,’ etc., for Augustine goes on to say that ’ in such a difficulty the lot seems the fairest decision, in default of others.‘

Part III. — Letters Written during the Exile of Hus

(September 1412 — August 1414)

Hus, as we have seen, had left Prague in the early autumn of 1412, but soon returned. On his final retirement in the December, Wenzel, who had insisted on the step, fulfilled his part of the unwritten compact by giving orders for a Synod to meet on February 2 at Bohmish Brod, a small town belonging to the Archbishop. In reality the Synod assembled at Prague on February 6, at the very time at which in Rome the works of Wyclif were being publicly burnt in the great square of St. Peter’s, on the orders of John’s Lateran Council (February 10, 1413). Before this Synod all parties laid their memorials — the theological faculty, the artists, and the Reformers. The opponents of Hus, chief among whom was ” the Iron Bishop,” John Bucka of Leitomischl, insisted that the papal decisions and the excommunication of Hus must be upheld, ’ that a vicechancellor be appointed to search out and punish the errors of masters and scholars,’ and that ’ the Czech writings of Hus — the stalks of these accursed tares and schism — be placed under an anathema.’ Obedience, they claimed, was the first duty of all, nor was it their business to consider whether the excommunication of Hus was just or unjust. Hus on his part — he was not there in person — both in his appeal to the Synod (infra, p. 115) as well as in his ’ conditions of peace,’ demanded the upholding of the decision of Zbinek of July 6, 1411. He harped much on the injury done to the realm by the accusations of heresy. Let the heretic be named, if known. On the personal charge he was prepared to defend himself under penalties against all opponents, but demanded in return that his calumniators, if they failed to substantiate their charges, should not escape scot free. Hus’s most important condition, one that shows also the influence of Wyclif, is his claim that the Civil Courts must be supreme ’ in all approbations, condemnations, and other acts concerning Mother

Church.’ Hus was followed by Jakoubek, who put in a plea that peace without a real reform would he valueless. Finally, the masters of Prague, the artists, wrote an elaborate reply, in which we may detect the inspiration of Jesenicz, to the claims and arguments of the theologians. The Synod was dissolved without result, and Hus retired once more to his asylum at the castle of Kozi hradek, near Austi.

Meanwhile Wenzel made one more attempt at compromise. A Commission of four was appointed, with the exArchbishop Albik at the head. Both parties bound themselves ’ under a penalty of a thousand guineas and exile from the realm ’ to accept its verdict. Hus himself again was absent. He was represented by ‘his proctor, John of Jesenicz, with him Jakoubek of Mies and Simon of Tissnow,’ while on the Commission was his friend, Christian Prachaticz, rector of St. Michael’s, Prague, who in the October of 1412 had been chosen, after a somewhat disputed election, the rector of the University. We have accounts of this Commission written by both parties ; by Hus in a letter to Christian Prachaticz (see infra, No. XXVII.), and by Palecz to his colleagues in the theological faculty. At the first meeting, in April, in the usual resort of the advanced party, the parsonage of Christian Prachaticz, it was evident that neither side would accept anything less than a verdict in their favour. Stanislaus said that he was wishful for peace, but the others must agree to the declaration of faith put forth by the theological faculty, ’ that the Pope is the head of the Roman Church, the cardinals the body, that all its decisions in matters of faith are true, that the contrary opinions of the Wyclifists are false and erroneous.’ The other side thereupon, adds Palecz, ‘horribly yelled against us for two days.’ The ‘horrible yelling’ was really an effort to accomplish the impossible, to mix oil and water, the principles of Rome and the Reformation. Jesenicz was willing to yield to Stanislaus’s definition of the Church, provided he were allowed to add to the statement of the faith and obedience due a saving clause, ‘such as every good and faithful Christian ought, or is bound to give.’ This loophole for private judgment was of course impossible. Even this concession, on reflection, seemed to Hus to be granting too much. In his letters to Christian he points out the difficulties of such a view of the Church. These difficulties, chiefly copied from Wyclif , he afterwards expanded into his De Ecdesia. We see, in

DUEING THE EXILE 85 fact, in these letters to Christian, especially Nos. XXVIII. and XXIX., the larger treatise in process of becoming. But we are anticipating. The immediate result of the gathering was the formal decision by its president that the two parties were really at one. ’ Be it then announced in the name of all that neither party is permitted in future to wrong the other in word or writing.’

Such official declarations of peace where there was no peace were of course valueless. The meeting was a fairure, but the Wyclifists retained the ear of the King. Wenzel relieved his disappointment by at once banishing Stanislaus of Znaim, Stephen Palecz, and two other opponents of Hus as the ’ authors of dissensioa’ Stanislaus — ‘out of whose head,’ says Hus, ’ the greater part of this nonsense had come ’ — retired into Moravia as the chaplain to a widow lady. He spent the rest of his days in writing numerous bitter tractates against Wyclif and Hus. He died at Neuhaus, in Moravia, from abcesses, when on the point of setting out for his revenge at Constance. Hus and Palecz were destined to meet again.

This victory for Hus was followed by a political success. Hitherto in the Old Town of Prague the council consisted of sixteen Germans and two Czechs. The Germans were on the side of the papal party, and had attempted, as we have seen, the destruction of the Bethlehem. On October 21, Wenzel issued an order transferring to the Crown the ” pricking ” of the eighteen councillors, nine from each nation. In the New Town the Czechs had long possessed the control. The whole of Prague was now committed to Hus’s side. The Church authorities were power less. Albik had resigned (February 10, 1413), or rather exchanged his archbishopric with Conrad of Vechta, Bishop of Olmiitz, who in later years became a Hussite. His creed at this time was probably opportunism ; at any rate he had but recently been inducted (July 17, 1413). Nevertheless, Hus deemed it well to stay in the country, first at Kozi hradek — not far from the later well-known Tabor — then, that he might be nearer the capital, at the castle of Krakowec, which belonged to his friend Henry Lefl of Lazan. ’ Here he remained,’ says the chronicler, ’ until such time as he went to Constance.’ This statement must not be pressed. In the early months of 1414 Hus tells us that he visited Prague repeatedly. One of his visits was on the Feast of Relics (April 20), an incident that sheds light

86 LETTERS WEITTEN on certain features of his character and letters (infra, p. 249, n). On another occasion he even preached in the Bethlehem, where upon the clergy at once renewed the interdict. Apart from these visits and his preaching tours, Hus spent his time in a lively correspondence with his friends, especially Christian Prachaticz, and in composing, as his answer to recent charges, his great work On the Church. Of this famous treatise, Dietrich Niem, the historian of the Schism, remarked at Constance that it ’ attacks the papal power and the plenitude of its authority as much as the Alcoran the Catholic faith ’ — a statement usually attributed, but wrongly, to Cardinal D’Ailli. But the De Ecclesia of Hus, as Loserth has shown, contains hardly a line, local colouring and polemics apart, which does not proceed from Wyclif. On its completion the volume was sent to Prague and publicly read (July 8, 1413) in the Bethlehem Chapel, on the walls of which the main positions of Hus’s pamphlet, De Sex Erroribus, had already been set up in large text. With the publication of this treatise there is for a while a gap in the letters of Hus. But one letter, in fact, has been preserved for us (No. XXXII.) between this event and the preparations of Hus, in the August of 1414, for his journey to Constance.

The literary labours of Hus, among which must be reckoned many treatises in Czech, whose alphabet he reformed by his invention of diacritical signs, did not interfere with his toils in the gospel, for on leaving Prague he had felt driven by his con science to resume his sermons (infra, p. 97). ’ Hitherto,’ he writes, ’ I have preached in towns and market-places ; now I preach behind hedges, in villages, castles, fields, woods. If it were possible, I would preach on the seashore, or from a ship, as my Saviour did’ — an interesting passage with which we may compare a statement in his Letters (infra, p. 101). He specially mentions as a favourite pulpit ‘a lime-tree near Kozi.’ One thing gravely distressed him. ‘Jesus went to preach on foot, not like our modern preachers, proudly carried in a carriage. I, alas ! drive.’ His excuse is necessity. ’ I could not otherwise possibly get in time to places so far distant.1 In the stress which he laid upon preaching, both in his Letters and in his other writings, Hus again followed Wyclif. ’ Preachers,’ he said, in words which are an echo from England, ’ in my judgment count in the Church for more than prelates.’ But his power in the pulpit itself Hus owed to no man, and his love of preaching was the gift of God. ’ By the help of God,’ he said, ’ I have preached, still am preaching, and if His grace will allow, shall continue to preach ; if perchance I may be able to lead some poor tired, blind, or halting soul into the house of Christ to the King’s supper.’

As the result of these labours, the doctrines of Hus spread on every hand, both in cottage and castle, in Prague and in the country. We see this consciousness of success in the proud answer the Keformer made at Constance to the questions of D’Ailli : ’ Yes, I have said that I came here of my own free will. If I had been unwilling to come here, neither that King (Wenzel) nor this (Sigismund) would have been able to force me to come, so numerous and so powerful are the Bohemian nobles who love me, and within whose castles I should have been able to lie concealed.’ At this the bystanders began to grumble. D’Ailli, with a shake of his head, cried out, ’ What effrontery ! ’ ’ He speaks truth,’ said John of Chlum. ’ I am a poor knight in our realm, but I should have been glad to have kept him for a year, whoever liked it or disliked it, so that no one would have been able to get him. There are numbers of great nobles who love him, who have strong castles. They could keep him as long as they wished even against both those kings.’ This conscious ness of a national party at his back explains the readiness with which Hus went to Constance, and his strange optimism as to the result.

The letters of Hus written during his exile, when read in the light of this introduction, will explain themselves. They are of very diverse interest and value, some chiefly polemical, others exhibiting the tenderest side of a pastor’s care for his flock. The exact order of the letters is largely conjectural, the following letter, for instance, presumably being written on receiving the news of the attempted destruction of the Bethlehem. Though this letter is written in Czech, Hus seems to have had no rule on the matter, the letters that follow, though addressed to the same people, being in Latin. Letter XVII. is a remarkably dignified and interesting pastoral, probably intended to be read from the pulpit of the Bethlehem, as we know from other sources was the custom (infra, p. 172). So too in the case of others of this series. Letters XX. and XXII. are beautiful Christmas addresses, which even in a translation will give some idea of Hus’s powers as a preacher. In Letter XXVI. we have a wistful, tender strain in

88 LETTERS WRITTEN the first part of the letter, passing into a fighting spirit towards the close. As a revelation of the man this letter (XXVI.) is invalu able. We may add that the letters written during the exile are not easy to translate, while the references they contain to current polemics do not always add interest for a later generation.

XVI. To THE PEOPLE OF PRAGUE.

( Without date : early in October 1412).

May God be with you, beloved lords and masters ! I beg you in the first place to consider God’s cause, to which great injury is being done; for certain persons desire to suppress His holy word, to destroy a chapel1 that is useful for the preaching of His word, and thus to hinder men from salvation. Secondly, consider the disgrace brought upon your country and nation and race. Thirdly, consider the shame and wrong that are being unjustly done to yourselves. Fourthly, consider and endure it patiently, that the devil is raging against you, and Antichrist is showing his teeth ; and yet like a dog chained up he will do you no hurt if you be lovers of God’s truth. Look ! he hath been raging against me for a number of years, and hath not yet hurt a hair of my head, but is ever adding to my joy and gladness.

Moreover, you ought to know that to abjure is to be guilty of renouncing what you believe in. Thus, one who abjures either renounces the true faith which he held, or a heresy and an error. It is as if one were a Christian, and through fear or the devil’s enticement were to mix himself up with Jews or pagans and swear that he wished no

1 The Bethlehem : supra, p. 87.

longer to hold ^Christianity. Vice versd, if a man holds a heresy — e.g., suppose he believes that the Lord Christ is not very God, as Jews and pagans believe — and then renounces this error, he is said to have abjured. Accordingly, be assured that if any of you abjure, as they suggest in their letters, he will abjure either the true faith and the truth, or — heresy and error. Accordingly, either after abjuring he will hold heresy or error — or before doing so, he will be proved to have held what he abjures. There fore, understand that in their letters they judge you to be heretics and demand that you abjure the heresy which they suppose you to hold. From this it is evident that a son or friend of yours, if he abjure, can be disgraced for having consorted with a heretical father or friend. Further, it is evident that any other person can rightly say to any one who abjures, “You abjured the heresy which you held and you are not worthy of me.” In the third place, understand that if any one abjures and retains in his mind the truth he abjures, as they bid you do, he will be a perjurer. Let us then consider these matters and give the preference to the truth and to the promise of God. Let us live nobly in love and resist the lie of Antichrist to the end. Let us make the Saviour Almighty our Helper, Whom no man can overcome, and Who will never forsake us so long as we ourselves do not forsake Him. He will give us an eternal reward — to wit, the satisfaction of will, reason, memory, and all the senses of the body without stint. I write this to you (for I cannot conveniently come to you) that the priests may not thwart you in your religious duties and interfere with your good pleasure. Amen.

90 Letters

XVII. To THE SAME. (Without date: early in October 1412)

Master John Hus, a servant of Jesus Christ in hope, to all that love God and confess His law, looking for the appearing of the Saviour, with whom they yearn to live for ever : grace and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, Who gave Himself up as a sacrifice for our sins, to deliver us from this troublesome world and from eternal damnation according to the will of God the Father, to Whom be glory for ever.1 Amen.

Beloved, I thank God on hearing of your desire for God’s word and your faithful progress therein ; and I pray that it may please Him to give you a perfect understanding that you may recognise the wiles and deceits of Antichrist and his ministers and not suffer yourselves to be drawn away from God’s truth.

I trust that in His mercy He will fulfil the good work that has been begun in you and will not allow you to stray from His truth. Many have forsaken it in fear of danger, being in terror of miserable man rather than of Almighty God, Who hath the power to kill and make alive, to destroy and to save, and to preserve His faithful ones in divers sore perils, and to grant unto them the eternal life with joy unspeakable in return for a little momentary suffering.

Therefore, dear friends, be not afraid or disturbed with terror because the Lord tries some of you by suffering the ministers of Antichrist to frighten you with their tyranny. For God Himself, in Proverbs, third chapter, saith to one of His servants : Be not

1 A paraphrase of Gal. i. 4-5.

afraid of sudden fear, nor of the power of the wicked falling upon thee. For the Lord will be at thy side, etc.1 And by His prophet David He saith : 2 / am with him in tribulation : I will deliver him and glorify him, etc.

Knowing this, dear friends, count it all joy — as St. James saith — when you shall fall into divers temptations, knowing that the trying of your faith worketh patience, and patience hath a perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, failing in nothing. And afterward he saith : Blessed is the man that endureth temptation. For when he hath been proved he shall receive the crown of life which God hath promised to them that love him.3 Stand, therefore, firmly in the truth which you know; do all things, whatsoever you do, as sons of God. Have confidence, because Christ hath conquered and you too will conquer. Remember Him “Who endured many persecutions at the hands of sinners that you fail not in your good desires; and, at the same time, laying aside every weight of sin, let us run to constant battle, considering Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who having joy set before him endured the shame of the cross, despising confusion and sitteth on the right hand of the throne of God.*

Seeing that the Creator, the King and Lord of all the world, not being constrained by the necessity of His divinity, did humble Himself by His humanity, He, albeit without sin, faithfully ministered to us sinners, bearing hunger, thirst, cold, heat, watchings, weakness, toils in teaching, and suffered dreadful insults at the hands of the bishops,6 priests, and scribes,

1 Prov. iii. 25-6. 2 Ps. xc. 15. • Jas. i. 2-4, 12.

• Heb. xii. 1-2. * Episoopis ; the reader will note this.

92 LETTERS WRITTEN so that they called Him gluttonous, winebibber, possessed of a devil,1 and a blasphemer, saying : This man is not of God? Branding Him with heresy, they excommuicated Him, and leading Him outside the city, they crucified Him as a malefactor.

If, therefore, Christ suffered such things at the hands of the priests, He that healed all sicknesses by His word, and Who without money and without price,3 cast out devils, raised the dead, taught them the law of God, hurt no man in anything, and did no sin, except only that He exposed their wickedness, why do we wonder if to-day the ministers of Anti christ, who are more greedy, luxurious, cruel and crafty than the Pharisees, persecute God’s servants, insult, curse, excommunicate, imprison, and kill them?4

You will remember that our King and Lord said : If the world hate you, kn&w ye that it hath hated me before you. If you had been of the world, the world would love its own ; but because you are not of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember my word that I said to you : The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you : if they have kept my word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me.b

Mark ! You have the prophecy of our Saviour that His elect will suffer persecution of the world — that is, of wicked men who know not God the Father and the Lord Jesus in truth. For though with their mouth they profess that they know God, yet by their evil works they deny him, as St. Paul

1 Matt. xi. 19, 18. * John ix. 16. s A paraphrase of Isa. Iv. 1. 4 A reference to the Three Martyrs, tupra, p. 78. 6 John xv. 18-21.

saith to Titus : l Whose works are manifest* greed, simony, pride, luxury, the forsaking and despising of God’s word; who set also the traditions of men above every word of God, caring naught for humility, poverty, temperance, and the love of Christ.

Therefore the evil shall not cease to persecute the good so long as the war of Christ and Antichrist shall last in this world. For St. Paul saith : All that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer per secution. But evil men and seducers shall grow worse and worse, erring and driving into error.3

St. Paul means by these words that all the godly shall suffer persecution for Christ’s sake. But evil men shall err and seduce others, and so shall fulfil their desires in evil-doing to their own destruction. Therefore, the Saviour prophesied of these in the words : Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves. But beware of men. For they will deliver you up in councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues… . The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son, and the children shall rise up against father and mother and shall put them to death. And they shall be hated by all men for my name’s sake ; but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved. And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another* But this persecution shall last till the day of judgment.

Therefore He saith further : Amen, I say to you, you shall not finish all the cities of Israel till the son of man come. The disciple is not above the master, nor the

1 Tit. i. 16. P. following Hon. reads : cum negant. Ut semctus Paulus etc. This punctuation is manifestly wrong. 1 Gal. v. 19. » 2 Tim. iii. 12-13. 4 Matt. x. 16-17, 21-3.

94 LETTEES WRITTEN servant above his lord. If they have called the goodman of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household ? Therefore fear them not.1

These words the Lord spake to His disciples that they might be able to escape such snares, cheering their minds that they might be wise and recognise by their works the ravening wolves that would swallow up the whole world in their greed.

Besides, He taught them how false prophets are recognised — namely, by the fact that they do not agree with the true prophets either in their writings 2 or in their works. Thus, there are false Christs who assert that they are Christ’s chief disciples, while in their works they are His chief foes and adversaries. Therefore in all possible ways they attempt to crush God’s word, because it reproves their contumacy, pride, greed, luxury, simony, and other evil works.

They have accordingly attacked certain places of worship and chapels3 to prevent the word of God being preached in them ; but Christ hath not suffered them to commit such a crime. I hear that they are now devising the destruction of the Bethlehem Chapel and are preventing preaching in other places of worship, where God’s word is wont to be taught; but I trust God that they will accomplish nothing. At first they laid their gins, their citations, and anathemas for the Goose, and now they are lying in wait for some of you; but since the Goose, a tame creature and a domestic fowl with no power

1 Matt. x. 23-6.

• Scripturis. Either a loose use or false reading for scriptis, or else attracted, so to speak, by the preceding prophetis.

• &wpra, p. 79. From the next paragraph we infer the date.

to reach great heights in his flight, hath yet broken through their nets, we may the more confidently expect that other birds, which by God’s word and by their lives soar to high places, will break their traps in pieces. They spread out their nets and struck terror with their anathema as with a wooden toy-hawk and they shot their fiery bolt from Anti christ’s quiver, provided only they might hinder God’s word and worship. But the more they seek to con ceal their true nature the oftener it betrays itself, and the more they strive to lay out their traditions like a net, the more they are broken through. In seeking to have the peace of the world, they lose both that and spiritual peace; in seeking to hurt others, they chiefly thwart themselves.

They suffer, therefore, the fate of the priests and high priests of the Jews, in that they lost what they tried to keep and fell into the pit they wished to escape in supposing that they could overcome and crush the truth, which always conquers. For its very property and nature is such that the more it is obscured, the more it shines forth, and the more it is laid low, the more it is raised up.

The high priests, priests, scribes, and Pharisees, the Herods, Pilate, and the people of Jerusalem con demned the Truth and gave Him to death and laid Him in the tomb ; but He rose again, overcame them all, and gave in His own stead twelve other preachers.

And it is this same Truth Who hath sent to Prague, in the place of one feeble, weakly Goose, falcons and eagles, which surpass all other birds in the keenness of their sight. These, by God’s grace, soar high and seize other birds for Christ Jesus, Who will strengthen these His servants and confirm all His faithful ones.

For He saith : / am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.1 If then. He, the true God, is with us, our mighty and righteous Defender, •who in his malice 2 would be able to withstand us ? What fear shall part us from Him ? or what death ? What shall we lose, if for His sake we lose wealth, friends, the world’s honours, and our poor life ? Surely at last we shall be delivered from this misery to receive wealth a hundred-fold more splendid, friends far dearer, and a joy more perfect. Death will not rob us of these things. For whoso dies for Christ, he is conqueror, and is delivered from all misery, and attains the eternal joy to which may it please our Saviour to bring us all.

This letter, dear brothers and sisters beloved, I write that you may be steadfast in the truth you have learnt and may have no fear of citations, and pay no less heed than before to the hearing of God’s word by reason of the cruel threats they utter. For God is faithful,3 Who will confirm and guard you from evil.

Finally, beloved, I beseech you to pray for them who proclaim God’s truth with grace. Pray for me also that I too may write and preach in fuller measure against the malice of Antichrist, and that God may put me in the forefront of the battle, if needs be, to defend His truth.

For be assured I shrink not from yielding up this poor body to peril or death for the sake of God’s truth, though I know that God’s word hath no need

1 Matt, xxviii. 20.

• P. : militia, sua. Read with Mon., malitia sua, because of the sua* Othersrise ’ in this warfare ’ would make a better reading.

• Heb. x. 23.

of us, nay, rather the truth of the gospel is spreading from day to day.

But I desire to live for the sake of those who suffer violence and need the preaching of God’s word, that the malice of Antichrist may be exposed in such wise that the godly can escape it. That is why I am preaching elsewhere and ministering to all such, knowing that the will of God is fulfilled in me, whether I die at the hands of Antichrist or on the bed of sickness. If I come to Prague, I am sure that my foes will be in wait for me and persecute you. For they do not serve God themselves, and they prevent others from serving Him. But let us pray God for them, that if there be any of the elect among them, they may be turned to the knowledge of the truth.

May God grant to you understanding in the things I write, and perseverance withal ! May it please Him to fulfil your desires with every blessing by the merits of Jesus Christ, who suffered for us a most shameful and cruel death, leaving us an example1 that we should suffer in like manner according to His will. Amen.

XVHI. To THE SAME ( Without date : October (?) 1412)

Master John Hus, a servant of Jesus Christ, to all who are at Prague, grace and peace from Jesus Christ ! With my whole heart I earnestly desire that you may be free from all sin through Jesus Christ, and overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil, setting at naught the vanities of this world. May 1 1 Pet. ii. 21.

98 LETTERS WRITTEN you, through the grace of Jesus Christ, in a spirit of goodwill suffer all things for salvation’s sake, and so be able to persevere in your afflictions, even to the end. This is the burden of my entreaty on your behalf, for I always make mention of you in my prayers. It was for this that I laboured among you in the word of God for more than twelve years,1 as God is my witness; and it was the best comfort I could have, when I learnt of your diligence in hearing God’s word and marked the real and sincere penitence of many among you.

Therefore, dear friends, I beseech you, by the passion of Christ, to keep His gospel and hold it fast, and to bring forth fruit as you advance in all the things which in those days I rehearsed to you. Do not vacillate and waver in your minds. Moreover, give no heed to those who have entered upon an uncertain path and have taken a different turning, and who are now the keenest opponents of God and of my actions.

But you know, dear friends, that Christ’s disciples, who dwelt in His company, turned aside and walked no more with Him.2 Christ, indeed, came to separate men from another. As He Himself saith : / came to set a man at variance against his father and the daughter against her mother.3 And again : You shall be betrayed for My name’s sake by all men* And that we may not be moved by their rejection and terrified by persecution or death, the Saviour presently adds :

1 According to Hus’s own statement, the first year of his preaching was 1401 (JMon. i. 39J). He was elected to the Bethlehem March 14, 1402. Hus is here reckoning, therefore, from his appointment to priest’s orders in 1400.

2 John vi. 67 (A.V. vi. 66). » Matt, x 35. 4 Luke xzi. 17.