Hus acted on it often. Most memorably, in publishing what came to be known as his “Appeal to Christ” on October 18, 1412, discussed in the previous chapter. This document, circulating in both Latin and Czech, was addressed to “all faithful Christians” and publicly announced Hus’s rejection of temporal jurisdiction on account of its abuse of the law.59 The appeal was unprecedented in the history of medieval canon law and, in effect, illegal. But it was a public-relations coup: Since he was unable to win the lawsuit brought against him by the curia, Hus reframed the contest as something he could win and claimed a moral, if not a legal, victory.
But Hus was no mere rebel; his rejection of authorities—when he explained it publicly—was always meticulously documented from the Scriptures, allowing the Bible to speak directly into his situation as a live voice of divine disapproval. Virtually all of Hus’s complaints about clerical failings (and there are many such complaints) come with a direct quotation of a New Testament passage in support of it. When speaking about interdicts, for example, Hus asks, “Because what is worse for Christians than to deny them funerals, baptisms, confessions, communion? … And this is the great suffering which the Savior talks about” in Matthew 24:21–22.60 When he criticizes clerics for disallowing preaching, he rails against them saying, “They do not preach against evil and prevent others from doing so. They ‘stop Jesus from speaking’ as Luke says in 11:53, and they curse those who believe in him as John 9:28 says.”61 Hus is clearly intent on acquainting his audience with what the Bible has to say and showing specifically how the Bible proves his opponents to be in the wrong.
To be sure, many of his interpretations were partisan and controversial, but the Bible was strictly at the heart of his catechetical effort and of his spiritual advice throughout the Expositions. In his Exposition of the Decalogue, Hus wrote that the laity must “honor the books that contain God’s commandments.”62 In his Exposition of the Lord’s Prayer, Hus justified his project by stressing the fact that the prayer was taken strictly from the Bible, that it was something that “the merciful lord himself taught to his disciples.”63 In his Exposition of the Faith, Hus stated that what was not in the Bible was not necessary to the faith and also admonished that everyone should accept truth pointed out to them from the Bible.64 This was a direct attack against the clerics who attacked him (as well as an eerily accurate prefiguration of Martin Luther’s stand at Wittenberg).
Hus believed firmly that the Bible belonged in the hands of the laity. His explanation for why it was unacceptable—and unbiblical—to keep the Scriptures away from the laity hinged on his interpretation of the kingdom of heaven. In his view, the kingdom of heaven could sometimes be used interchangeably with the Scriptures, which, in turn, allowed him to insist that not only must the Bible be kept open to anyone wishing to enter into it but also that clerics were obligated to invite the laity to partake of it. But Hus went even further. His stated intention was to empower the laity to make their own decisions about what was true and whom to follow, the kind of decision making that prelates wanted to prevent by keeping the Bible a closely guarded secret.65 In the background of Hus’s decision to bring a vernacular Bible to the laity were audible echoes of Hus’s own experience with the church’s hierarchy: by now he had been maligned, refused hearing, and excommunicated. Bringing knowledge of the Bible to his followers would equip them to act with similar resolve should something similar happen to them.
In addition to his partisan interpretations, Hus also devoted much attention to concepts fundamental to the faith. He did not shy away from notoriously difficult Christian subjects such as God, the nature of Christ, his crucifixion and resurrection, or the kingdom of heaven. He even tackled subjects that Christian preachers tend to avoid, then as now, bravely explaining a definition of the Holy Trinity.66 And regardless of the subject, he showed where and how his explanations were contained in the Scriptures. It is clear that Hus was serious about catechesis and preferred to give as much biblical background explanation as was possible.
However, Hus did not limit himself to fundamental questions of the faith but also addressed less elevated subjects, answering questions that any believer might feasibly ask. Among them were queries such as why are some prayers answered and others not, why should we love our neighbor even when he or she treats us badly, what is the best posture for prayer, or why did the Savior actually spend time with sinners?67 In each case, Hus considered the question at hand with seriousness and responded not with pat answers but with compassion and theological insight. He explained the following: God does not answer some prayers, because some people are not worthy of being heard and because some requests are not good for salvation.68 We should love our neighbor even if he or she is evil, because all were created by God, in God’s image and likeness.69 The best body postures for prayer are kneeling down or prostration.70 And the Savior spent so much with the sinners for several reasons, to lead them out of sin and to show them that he was the Savior of sinners, as it is written in Luke 19:10.71
Hus also found the time to entertain lesser subjects, those that did not have a bearing on one’s salvation at all, honoring the sheer curiosity of the faithful. For example, he paused his discussion of Jesus’s preaching in Galilee to remark on New Testament geography and culture, explaining that Tyra and Sidon were both towns and that Galilee was the term one used to describe the whole region in the Jewish land and that it was also where Christ was born.72 Elsewhere, Hus explained words like “scribe … in Latin ‘publicanus,’ ”73 and “ ‘tabernacula,’ which means eternal tents.”74 The explanations might seem superfluous, pertaining neither to salvation nor moral goodness, but they were important enough for Hus to include them for the sake of knowledge.
Throughout the Postil, Hus paused to address questions of translation, often giving his audience the Latin term or phrase before reflecting on how best to translate them. Sometimes, he admitted, the Czech vernacular did not have an appropriate term, in which case he attempted to find a phrase or circumlocution that would convey what was needed. Most controversially, Hus frequently admitted that a multiplicity of interpretations of the scriptural text at hand was possible, both in the Postil and in the Expositions. For example, in a sermon written for the second Sunday after Easter, Hus explained that some understood the “sheepfold” mentioned by Jesus to refer to the ultimate conversion of Jews to the Christian faith, but others thought it referred to a full conversion of the elect.75 Drawing attention to the Bible’s potential for multiplicity of meaning appears counterproductive to Hus’s stated intention to educate, as it might usher in confusion and uncertainty. However, acknowledging that multiple readings existed allowed Hus to make a clear distinction between the biblical text and its interpretation, moreover underscoring the importance of a competent interpreter.
The injunction to make sure one obeys the right kind of cleric is at the heart of Hus’s spiritual advice but has seldom been commented upon.76 Yet it seems clear that Hus’s advice to the laity was influenced by the events of Hus’s own life, especially the way he has been treated by the ecclesiastical authorities since his excommunication and exile. The external events that proved especially formative (and that he mentions frequently) were his excommunication, the interruption of divine services, the ban on preaching in Bethlehem Chapel, and the threat of the chapel’s destruction.77 Related to these events were personal decisions that Hus made in response to them. They too shaped Hus’s spiritual advice to the laity, especially those that he was not fully sure about, often wondering in writing whether he had made the right choice and reassuring himself that he had. Two decisions especially haunted him: his refusal to travel to Rome to defend his appeal in 1410 and his subsequent decision to abandon his post at Bethlehem Chapel in face of excommunication and interdict in the fall of 1412. The events framing Hus’s life influenced Hus’s spirituality: he called for struggle against unjust authorities, promoted active discernment of which clerics were worth obeying, and called on the believers to stand up against the forces of the Antichrist.
Indeed, Hus interwove serious criticisms of priests who abused their power or failed in their
