errors, as you are aware: further, I always sought your salvation; I seek it now, and will seek it unto death. I had resolved to preach to you before starting on my journey to Constance, and in particular to declare to you the false testimonies and the false witnesses who gave evidence against me. I possess all their signatures[1] together with their depositions, and I intend to declare their names to you for these reasons—that if I shall be evilly spoken against or condemned to death, you may not be terrified when you know of it, as if I were condemned on account of any heresy that I hold;[2] and also that you may persevere without fear and wavering in the truth which the Lord God hath brought to your knowledge through faithful preachers and through me, feeble though I be; and thirdly, that you may guard against crafty and pretended preachers.
Now, however, I have started on my journey, without safe-conduct,[3] into the midst of many of my greatest enemies, among whom the most relentless are those of my own household,[4] as you will discover from the depositions and will certainly learn at the close of the Council. I shall be opposed by more foes than our gracious Redeemer—bishops, doctors,
- ↑ As Lea has shown, Hist. Inquis. ii . 477, any knowledge by a prisoner of the Inquisition of the names of the witnesses was a most unusual advantage. But there was no papal Inquisition in Bohemia, only the more lax episcopal.
- ↑ This was much twisted and made into a further charge at Constance. See pp. 173, 180, 207. Hus complained more than once that his enemies treated his Czech writings very unfairly.
- ↑ For explanation, see supra, p. 146. This fixes the date.
- ↑ Matt. x. 36. These depositions are printed in Doc. 174 ff., and bear out Hus’s contention. Hus was probably thinking most of all of the deposition of his former friend Andrew Brod.
