Jan Hus reads Wycliffe
The Bohemian reformer catches fire
Jan Hus is a Czech priest and the rector of the University of Prague — the most prominent intellectual in Bohemia — when Wycliffe's writings arrive from England. The connection comes through Bohemian students who studied at Oxford and carried the manuscripts home.
Hus reads Wycliffe and finds his own convictions confirmed and sharpened. He agrees with Wycliffe's critique of clerical corruption, his insistence on scripture's authority, his attack on the sale of indulgences. He disagrees with Wycliffe on the Eucharist — Hus maintains the orthodox position on transubstantiation — but the overall framework of reform, anchored in scripture and aimed at the corruption of the institutional church, resonates deeply.
Hus begins preaching at the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague — a chapel specifically established for preaching in Czech rather than Latin, to ordinary people in their own language. His preaching is electrifying. Thousands come. The Czech reform movement grows around him.
The Archbishop of Prague condemns him. The Pope excommunicates him. Hus appeals to the next general council — and eventually gets one. The Council of Constance summons him in 1414 under a guarantee of safe conduct from the Holy Roman Emperor.
He goes. He knows it may be a trap. He goes anyway, because he believes the council can be persuaded by argument, because he believes truth is powerful enough to win a fair hearing.
He does not get a fair hearing.
“I greatly hoped that at this council there would be a reformation of the church. But now I see it going in a different direction.”
— Jan Hus, letter from Constance, c. 1415 AD
“My times are in your hand. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies, and from those who persecute me.”
Hus went to Constance hoping for a fair hearing and received a trial whose conclusion was predetermined. He had a guarantee of safe conduct from the emperor. The council declared that promises made to heretics were not binding.
He had spent his career believing that truth, fairly presented, would prevail. He discovered that the people controlling the presentation had no interest in fairness.
This is not a counsel of cynicism. It is a counsel of realism — the realism of someone who has been where Hus went and understands what the institution can do when its authority is threatened.
Hus went anyway. Knowing it might be a trap, knowing the deck was stacked, he went because the alternative was to abandon the conviction that truth deserves to be spoken in every forum that will receive it, even the forums that have already decided.
Hus went to Constance knowing how it would go. He went because truth deserves to be spoken in every forum that will receive it, even the forums that have already decided.
Go. Say what needs to be said. The outcome is not yours to control. The saying is.