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LIII.: To John of Chlum ( Without date: morning, June 5, 1415) - Jan Huss, The Letters of John Hus [1904]

Edition used:

The Letters of John Hus. With Introductions and Explanatory Notes by Herbert B. Workman and R. Martin Pope (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1904).

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LIII.

To John of Chlum

(Without date: morning, June 5, 1415)

My dear friend in Christ, still arrange for all the nobles to have access to the King and Council; and get the King and Council to do as they have both already stated “in the hearing that is to take place you will have a brief written statement and to this you shall reply.” They can drive both Sigismund and the Council to this by telling them that by God’s help I will make a plain statement of the truth. I would rather that my body be consumed by fire than that I should thus be kept basely out of sight by them, in order that all Christendom may know the last words I have spoken. I beg my friends the nobles for God’s sake to act by showing to the end their diligence and constancy. My hope in the Lord is always firm.

Lord John, my most trusty and gracious supporter, may God be your reward! I beg you not to leave until you see the end reached. Would that you might see me being led to the flames rather than so craftily smothered here! I still cherish the hope that God Almighty is able to snatch me from their hands through the merits of the saints. Let me have the hint if to-morrow I am to be brought up for a hearing. Greet all my friends in Bohemia,1 beseeching them to pray God on my behalf. If I am to remain a prisoner, let them pray that I may await death without failing of heart. Exhort the masters to stand firm in the truth; also our special friends, the virgin Petra2 and all her household and Master Jesenicz,3 urging him to marry. Beg my friend Girzik4 and the rector5 to rest content, though I have not been able to do enough for them in return for their service; please let them give my greetings to my friends of either sex. I know not who will repay those who have advanced money, except the Lord Jesus Christ, for whose sake they have advanced it. Yet I should like some of the richer people to club together and pay the poorer ones. But I am afraid that the proverb will be fulfilled in some cases: “Co s očí, to z mysli” (“Out of sight, out of mind”).6

Later in the day, though probably still early in the morning, Hus was brought up for the long-expected public audience. A congregation of the Council had been summoned to meet in the refectory of the Franciscan convent. The intention was to satisfy Sigismund by a public condemnation, but in the absence of Hus himself. So the psalm customary for an inquiry into heresy (Psalm l.) was read, and the thirty articles against him formally presented. An attempt was then made to deprive Hus of the grace of recantation, by the putting in of the letter which he had left at Prague (supra, p. 147). There only remained the formal reading of a sentence already determined. This crafty plan was frustrated. Before it could be carried through Mladenowic stirred up Chlum and Duba to hasten to Sigismund. The Emperor despatched Lewes, the Count Palatine, and the burgrave Frederick of Nuremberg, with orders that nothing should be done until Hus himself was present; while the friends of Hus, to prevent inaccurate or mutilated excerpts, put in genuine copies of his works, on the condition that they should be restored to them—a precaution that, as we learn from the following letter of Hus, was not needless. So Hus had at length his desire, and stood before his enemies. Very different was the reality to his dreams. Instead of an oration before a listening senate, he was met, when he attempted to explain, with angry shouts: ‘Have done with your sophistries!’ ‘Say yes or no!’ If he remained silent, they clamoured that he consented. As the tumult grew the trial was adjourned until the 7th, and Hus removed in the custody of the Bishop of Riga. ‘Do not fear for me,’ he said, as he grasped the hands of his friends. ‘We do not fear,’ they answered. ‘I know you do not,’ he added. As Mladenowic and Chlum watched him mount the steps of the tower adjoining the convent, they saw him ‘smile, as if in gladness after his mockery, and hold out a hand as if blessing the people.’ That same night, as if to reassure them of his constancy, Hus wrote to his friends in Constance. It is remarkable that Hus already clearly discerned the real issue on which he would be condemned (see infra, p. 208, n 1). Another letter was written the following day to his unfailing friend John of Chlum, as well as a third to Peter Mladenowic.

[1 ]In regno.

[2 ]Cf. p. 236.

[3 ]Who had left in March (p. 200).

[4 ]Cf. p. 151, where we learn that he was a scholar of Hus by name George. From p. 212 we learn that he had become a rector.

[5 ]i.e., Cardinalis.

[6 ]Ep. Piiss. G. 4: Tzo so-czy, to smyssli, which Luther (Ep. Piissimæ) and the Monumenta naturally left untranslated.