THE REFORMERS

(1370–1415)

John Huss was born and lived in Bohemia (present day Czechoslovakia). He died at the stake for his faith, condemned by the Catholic Church and burnt at Constance in Switzerland in 1415. He learned the truth from Wycliffe’s writings. “The Book of the Persecutions of the Bohemian Church”, by Comenius, says, “In the year 1400 A.D. Jerome of Prague returned from England bringing with him the writings of Wycliffe.” The latter had died in 1384 at Lutterworth, in England. A chronicler of the 15th century states that the writings of Wycliffe opened the eyes of Huss to the truth. This chronicler was Nicholaus von Pelhrimow. The struggle between Huss and the Catholic Church took place mostly in Prague and centred particularly around the Bethlehem Chapel and the University.

Huss was a boy of fourteen when Wycliffe died at Lutterworth. He was a man of thirty when the writings of the great Reformer came into his hands. In his own country there were those who looked with disfavour on the Catholic Church before his time, contemporaries of Wycliffe. The Lord was working in Bohemia as he had worked in England. Often we may wonder where the Lord’s people were in these days before the Lutheran Reformation. In seeking for them it is wise to see whom the Catholic Church persecuted. This will often point us to the true seekers after truth. Bohemia was one of the countries to which a certain persecuted sect from the Alps of Northern Italy and Southern France, the Waldensians, had gone for refuge. This group sprang up at Lyons about 1170, affirming that poverty was the true Christian way of life and that the Holy Scriptures were the infallible guide in religion, which led on to the claim that every good man was competent to preach and expound Holy Writ and to the desire to translate it from Latin to the mother tongue. In the 13th century this group came under the scourge of the Inquisition founded in 1233 and its members fled to Germany, Bohemia and Hungary and carried the truth with them. So it is not surprising to find vestiges of truth in Bohemia in the early 14th century before Huss was born. John Milicius, Archdeacon of the Cathedral Church of Prague filled that place with his preaching and attacked the abuses of the Church. He actually went to Rome and was horrified at what he saw there. He wrote over one of the Cardinal’s doorways, “Anti-Christ is come”, and for that was imprisoned for some time on his return to Prague. Later released, he died in 1374 at the age of eighty. Another great preacher in Prague was Conrad Stickna, who preached in the open air outside the Cathedral to large crowds. A third was Matthew Janovius who travelled round Bohemia preaching against the abuses of the Church. This eventually resulted in persecution, imprisonment and the stake, which was introduced in 1376, for his followers. Thus persecution was in progress when Huss was born. Janovius taught that salvation was only to be found by faith in the crucified Saviour. On his deathbed in 1394 he said, “The rage of the enemies of truth now prevails against us, but it will not be for ever; there shall arise one from among the common people without sword or authority, and against him they shall not be able to prevail.”

In the latter half of the 14th century Bohemia was preparing for a great struggle for her religious and political liberties. This was to follow the death of Huss in what were known as the Hussite Wars. Thus the century from 1350 to 1450 was momentous in the history of Bohemia. At the beginning of this period Charles I King of Bohemia (later Charles IV Emperor of Germany) protected Janovius from the persecution of the Catholic Church and was influenced by him to try and reform some of the manifest abuses of the Church in Bohemia, especially its enormous wealth. He established peace and order in his country, and extended the municipal liberties of towns. He also founded the University of Prague in 1347 and brought many eminent scholars there. He patronised authors who wrote in the Bohemian tongue and tried to revive the national literature and language. So when Huss was born at Hussinetz (he took his name from his birthplace), a market place on the edge of the Bohemian Forest, much had already happened in Bohemia connected with the work he was to undertake. His father died when he was young and his mother, after educating him at the local school, took him to Prague to the University. He had a successful career there. He obtained his B.A. in 1393, his Bachelor of Theology in 1394 and his M.A. in 1396. In 1398 he commenced lecturing in the University. Soon he joined the Church as a priest and went to the court of King Wenceslas who had succeeded his father, Charles IV, in 1378 as King of Bohemia. His Queen, Sofia of Bavaria, selected Huss as her confessor.

At this time Huss was a firm supporter of the Catholic Church. His true career as a Reformer dates from 1402 when he was appointed preacher at the Chapel of Bethlehem in Prague. The emphasis in this Church was on preaching and the sermons of Huss were epoch making. The morals in Prague were exceedingly low among all classes. Huss sounded out the truth, influenced, as we mentioned at the beginning, by the writings of Wycliffe. He acted like the conscience of the nation and it seems that during the preparation of these sermons his own conscience was awakened to the truth. A great outcry arose against him from all groups, but the Queen, and strangely, the Archbishop of Prague, who recognised the truth of his assertions, protected him. Huss founded all he said on the Scriptures and so frequently appealed to them, that he soon restored them to their rightful place in the eyes of the people. He preached to the common people in their own language. Around him there grew a community who loved his teachings; and he gradually grew in the knowledge of the truth himself, the more so as he read and came to understand the writings of Wycliffe. He placed the Bible above the authority of the Pope or any Council of the Church and thus founded a movement of which he little realized the consequences. He did not yet differ from the Catholic Church on any point except the one mentioned above, namely the supremacy of Scripture, but this one difference was enough to lead him eventually from the traps of error to the fold of truth.

Another of the factors which favoured Huss was the marriage of Richard II of England with Anne, sister of the King of Bohemia, in 1382. When she died in 1394 the ladies of her court in returning to Bohemia had brought back the writings of Wycliffe, whose disciple Anne of Bohemia had been. The University of Prague was a centre of learning and good ground for the influence of the great English Reformer, long since dead. Huss copied Wycliffe’s work and translated some into Czech. He gradually came to see the truth, though he never saw it as clearly as Wycliffe had seen it himself. Mostly he understood the grosser abuses of the Church as in the case of the relic of Wilsnack, said to be the blood of Christ and able to perform cures. Huss was ordered to take part as a member of a commission appointed by the Archbishop of Prague to examine the authenticity of the cures. He found them all fraudulent. In 1409 Huss was appointed Rector of the University of Prague. So from two directions, from the Royal Court and from Jerome, Huss received Wycliffe’s writings and as Rector of the University of Prague was able to spread these teachings among the students and the lecturers. Soon it became known at Rome that a man so influenced by the writings of Wycliffe was Rector of Prague University and was spreading these “erroneous” views among his students, many of whom came not only from Bohemia, but also from Germany. The Pope issued a Bull for this teaching to be stopped and the “erroneous” books to be burnt. Many of the nobility were followers of the “reformed school of thought”. This was shown by the many beautiful bindings on the volumes of Wycliffe which were publicly burnt by the Church in Prague. But this bonfire merely roused Huss. He now not only attacked the abuses of the Church but also the use of indulgences. The Pope demanded that Huss appear in person to answer for his “errors”. But the King, Queen, University and nobility supported him and suggested that a legal cousel appear for Huss before the Pope. To go in person was courting arrest and death.

The Pope refused to listen to this idea and put the city of Prague under an “Interdict”, by which all churches were closed and the priests ceased to marry and bury. This caused considerable panic in the City as the dead lay unburied, and so to avoid such chaos as the Pope’s Interdict brought, Huss left Prague and went to his native town of Hussinetz. But he did not rest there — he travelled round the surrounding villages and towns preaching the truth to the crowds that came to hear him. Gradually things quietened down in Prague and Huss went back to preach at the Bethlehem Chapel, now the centre of the new movement. In the University a strong group of doctors and priests opposed him. Many would have liked to silence him and close the Bethlehem Chapel. But Huss had also a powerful group of supporters still, including the Queen with many of the nobles, and the great body of the citizens of Prague sided with him. He also had one close friend in Jerome who had been to Oxford in England and brought back Wycliffe’s teaching. Both Huss and Jerome were to die at the stake eventually and give their lives in martyrdom for their faith. Jerome was a disciple of Huss. He was a great debater and a much more impulsive man than Huss who was of a quieter disposition. But as Wylie says, “The union of these two men gave a sensible impulse to the cause.” The Reformation in Bohemia was under way and we hope next month, God willing, to deal with the further sowing of the seed in the death of Huss.

(to be continued)

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