VIII. To John Barbatus and the People of Chrumnaw
(May 25, 1411)
Greetings and grace from the Lord Jesus Christ! Beloved, I have heard of your tribulation, but count it all joy that you fall into divers temptations[1] to the proving of your constancy. I am now beginning, dear friends, to be tempted, but I count it a joy that for the gospel’s sake I am called a heretic and suffer excommunication, as an evildoer and malcontent. However, as a defence unto my joy I recall the life and the words of Christ as well as the words of the apostles. In the fourth of Acts it is narrated how Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest, called the apostles together and forbade them to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said to them, If it be just in the sight of God to hear you rather than God, judge ye, for we cannot but speak the things we have seen and heard.[2] Again, when the same high priests forbade them to preach, they said in the fifth of Acts: We ought to obey God rather than men.[3] In the same book we find heathen, Jews, and heretics saying that God must be obeyed before everything. But alas! it is the followers of Antichrist that are blind to that rule and not the holy apostles and the true disciples of Christ. The blessed Jerome in his Epistle to the Ephesians[4] saith: If a lord or a prelate issue
