Son of Man’s sake. Be glad in that day and rejoice; for behold, your reward is great in heaven.” He saw himself as an apostle, stating that he would ultimately partake of the same crown of glory and imagining that they passed through fire in the same way that he soon would.22 In this schema, his suffering and persecution served as a proof that he was innocent.
Hus’s persecution and suffering confirmed that he was, indeed, a chosen servant of God. Hus used Old Testament prophets, apostles, and Christ as examples to underscore this point. Referring to Luke 6:22–23, in which Christ stated that the world hated true prophets and loved false ones, Hus argued that the world’s hatred for him proved that he was, in fact, a true prophet.23 This parallel was expanded in a letter, written in the vernacular to his friends in Bohemia from his jail cell at the end of June 1415, twelve days before his death. In it, Hus instructed the citizens of Prague to not be afraid if they saw his books burned in a public spectacle (in the manner of Wyclif’s books, burned by the archbishop in July 1410). The letter then listed a number of Old Testament prophets who had suffered a similar fate, such as Jeremiah, Baruch, and other, esteemed biblical figures.24 Hus also alluded to Christian saints, such as John Chrysostom, twice accused of heresy by priests, but whose reputation God cleared after his death. By associating himself with those whose saintliness had stood the test of time, Hus appeared equally blameless and innocent, vindicated by God against all his earthly opponents.
Hus also claimed that the circumstances of his persecution and arrest were similar to those of Jesus. The parallels began to appear shortly after Hus’s departure for exile in October 1412. In a letter written from an unknown location to the inhabitants of Prague, Hus addressed his audience in the vernacular. His words were reminiscent of the apostle Paul, speaking to those who love God in truth, await the Savior, and follow his law.25 Of course, “following his law” meant acting in the manner determined by Hus. In the body of the letter, Hus encouraged his audience to resist the temptation to be afraid. It is left unclear what the audience might fear, presumably the clerics who persecute Hus. Not only should they not be afraid, Hus wrote, the faithful ought to rejoice in their trials.
In a seamless transition, Hus turned from talking about his own troubles to the persecution of Christ, emphasizing the parallels between their situations. In Hus’s recounting of Christ’s life, Christ was called a heretic and was excommunicated, condemned, and crucified. In Hus’s view, Christ had endured heavy abuses from bishops, priests, and scribes. They called him a ravenous drinker, demoniac, and blasphemer, saying “this man is not from God” and exposing him as a slanderer. Hus’s paraphrase of Christ’s life emphasized Christ being a heretic, someone not from God, and someone excommunicated, all of which paralleled Hus’s experience. By this time, Hus had been exiled from Prague, banned from preaching, called a heretic, accused of spreading error and bad teachings, and excommunicated. Another reference to the life of Christ that paralleled Hus’s own life appeared in a letter written shortly before December 25, again to the inhabitants of Prague. In the letter, Hus advised the audience to ignore the ban on attending Bethlehem Chapel. “They have no reason to keep you away from the word of God being preached, especially now that I am away.”26 But the main focus of the letter was for Hus to justify his departure from Bethlehem and from Prague. Citing instances when Jesus would deliberately elude his persecutors (like Hus, choosing to leave his hometown in order to preach elsewhere), Hus praised Jesus for his (and, implicitly, Hus’s own) foresight and cunning in avoiding his persecutors and fleeing the city.27 In his own view, Hus fled in the same way and for the same (good) reasons as Jesus did. And because no one could possibly dispute Jesus’s infinite, divine wisdom and accuse him of cowardice, Hus’s actions were, by association, to be understood in the same (indisputably good) way.
Hus’s manipulation of Scriptures must have caused quite a splash, since in winter 1413 the doctors of theology at the university in Prague officially criticized his practice of scriptural interpretation. In the document entitled Consilium doctorum facultatis theologiae studii Pragensis, they argued that Hus read the Bible according to his own ideas and not the church’s.28 The criticism suggests that Hus employed the Bible for his personal ends and deviated from the acceptable interpretation. The masters especially objected to Hus’s use of biblical verses to justify his calls for disobedience of ecclesiastical authorities. However, Hus’s response to the Consilium in June 1413, addressed to Magister John, cardinal of Rejnštejn, indicated that he had no interest in changing his practice. Hus would continue to interpret his own persecution as suffering for the sake of truth.29 And in this narrative, accepting Hus’s interpretation of contemporary events and his role in them was necessary for salvation.
Hus’s vernacular letters describe his predicament using the language of the Bible. Hus depicts himself as a hero of biblical proportions: an unjustly persecuted fighter for the truth who must battle the Antichrist himself. In a telling example of Hus’s use of the Scriptures, Hus applied Jesus’s words that his elect were “those who hear my word and obey it, and who suffer with me.”30 This kind of rhetoric was instrumental to how Hus managed to create such a tight-knit group around himself, a veritable faction. Not only did Hus keep tabs on who did and did not belong among his followers, he insinuated that this state of belonging had eternal consequences. Remaining faithful to Christ’s law (as taught and proclaimed by Hus) now served as the litmus test for determining eternal reward or punishment. The followers’ willingness to suffer for the sake of truth marked them, in Hus’s view, as the chosen ones of God. At the final judgment, Christ’s apostles would show special recognition to the apostles of Hus.31 In this way, Hus’s own partisan interpretation of the Scriptures became for his followers synonymous with the law of Christ. It is likely that the laity was unaware that Hus was presenting them with highly polemical interpretations. The Bible became a weapon that Hus used for his own end.
Hus’s Vernacular Catechesis: Spiritual Call to Practical Action
Since his exile in October 1412, Hus also wrote vernacular treatises, in fact, most of his vernacular works date from this period of exile.32 These “exilic” treatises are seldom subject of scholarly inquiry, although there has been interest in them as evidence regarding the development of Hus’s spirituality. Thomas Fudge offered an analysis of them in his discussion of Hus’s spirituality, with useful summaries of the different works not addressed in this chapter.33 Antonín Váhala offered another reading of these treatises, suggesting that we take them as a testament to Hus’s “calling to holy orders and the cure of souls.”34 This latter view paints a recent view of Hus as the pastor of souls and contains an entirely unexamined assumption that these pastoral treatises are not polemical, not written against someone or something. The analysis here assumes the opposite. Having been banished from the capital, Hus smarts from punishments that he views as unjust and wishes to inculcate the faithful with the kind of learning that would eventually vindicate him.
These vernacular treatises mostly addressed the common people and aimed to inculcate Hus’s particular vision of a healthy spiritual and moral life. Like his letters, these works have often been ignored until recently, seen as secondary to Hus’s life work, mostly because they were thought to contain little in the way of theological or spiritual novelty, and much of the content appeared elsewhere in Latin either in Hus’s own works or in Wyclif’s.35 This section will consider his five principal vernacular works, Hus’s trilogy of Expositions (of Faith [that is, of the Apostle’s Creed], of the Decalogue, and of the Lord’s Prayer),36 his vernacular Postil,37 and his work On Simony.38 Through his vernacular works, Hus tried to teach his listeners what he considered a productive spiritual life, giving them advice for how to deal with enemies both spiritual and worldly. However, much of his advice consisted of lambasting corrupt clerics and general criticisms of the state of the church and as such was deeply divisive. To live a good spiritual life, according to Hus, necessitated standing up to corrupt authorities, much as he did.
The Expositions Trilogy
The Expositions
