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A HISTORY OF BOHEMIAN
LITERATURE
leading ideas of Hus can be traced to the same source. This fact has been strongly brought forward by Professor Loserth, who has quoted in parallel columns passages from Hus's treatise, De Ecclesia, and passages from Wycliffe's treatise of the same name, which are identical. In a lesser degree Loserth has found this dependence on Wycliffe also in other works of Hus. The German professor, however, deals principally with the Latin works of Hus, whereas his Bohemian writings — though the influence of Wycliffe can here also be traced— are far more independent and original. It must also be remembered that in the fifteenth and even the sixteenth century the modern ideas with regard to literary property were unknown. Many writers, particularly on theology, incorporated with their works whole pages from the writings of their predecessors, and this without any It would also be incorrect to imagine acknowledgment. that Hus followed Wycliffe blindly. He indeed writes: " 1 hold those true doctrines which Master John Wycliffe, professor of holy theology, held, not because he said these things, but because the Holy Scripture says them." On the important question of transubstantiation Hus, diffei'ing herein from Wycliffe, upheld the teaching of It must further be considered the Church of Rome. that in many cases ideas common to Hus and to the English reformer can be traced far farther back. This matter has been fully expounded by the recent foreign and Bohemian writers on Hus. It will here be sufficient briefly to state that the disapproval of the enormous riches, of the arrogance and avarice of the higher members of the Roman clergy — so constantly expressed by Hus — can be traced back as far as to the German
