St. John Chrysostom was condemned on the charge of heresy by two Councils,[1] but God in His mercy after St. John’s death revealed their falsehood.[2] Keep these examples before you, that you may not under stress of fear give up reading what I have written and hand over your books to be burnt by them. Remember what the merciful Saviour said to us by way of warning in Matt. xxiv., that before the Judgment Day shall be great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect: but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened.[3] Holding these things in your memory, beloved, press bravely on; for I trust God that the school of Antichrist shall tremble before you and suffer you to enjoy quietness, and that the Council of Constance shall not come to Bohemia, for methinks many members of the Council will die before they wrest the books from your hands, and they will be scattered abroad from that Council over the earth, like storks; and when winter comes they will discover what they achieved in the summer.[4] Ponder the fact that they condemned their own head on the charge of heresy. Come now, make reply, ye preachers who proclaim
- ↑ The Synods of “the Oaks” and Constantinople.
- ↑ In 438, thirty-three years after his death in exile, the remains of the martyr were brought back to Constantinople.
- ↑ Matt. xxiv. 21–4.
- ↑ Hus’s views of the effects of his death on Bohemia were fully fulfilled.
Sabinianus) and adopted by Milman (ii. 310). There is no mention of it in the earliest Life of Gregory (by a monk of Whitby), and it is rightly rejected, so I take it, by Gregorovius (ii. 94). But Hus has changed the tale for his own purposes; it was not the ‘cardinals’ but the ‘people’ who tried to burn the books.
