The letters of John Hus/Letter 49, To John of Chlum

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For other English-language translations of this work, see Letter of Jan Hus to John of Chlum (after 5 March 1415).
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The letters of John Hus (1904)
by Jan Hus, translated by Robert Martin Pope, edited by Herbert Brook Workman
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XLIX. To John of Chlum

(Without date: March 6th, 1415[1])

Every word you wrote in your last letter gave me excellent comfort. Our learned doctor of Biberach agreeth in his exposition with my own thoughts, though that adage of Cato’s holds good, “For dreams have no care,”[2] and also God’s command that we hearken not to dreams.[3] Yet I hope that the life of Christ, which I painted from His word at the Bethlehem in the hearts of men and which they wished to blot out from the Bethlehem—issuing first of all an order that there should be no preaching in chapels and in the Bethlehem, then afterwards that the Bethlehem should be razed to the ground[4]—I hope, I say, that that life of Christ is being painted up in better fashion by other better preachers than myself amid the rejoicings of the people that love Christ’s life.[5] Wherein I will rejoice—as saith our learned doctor[6]—when I awake out of sleep, that is, when I rise from the dead. The writing too on the walls of the Bethlehem still abides,[7] though Palecz is mightily ​vexed against it, saying that it was through it that I led the people into errors; nay, he stoutly insists that it be blotted out so as thereby to bring me into utter confusion: moreover as I lay here in weakness, he hailed me, before them all,[8] with a most horrible greeting, of which I will tell you hereafter, if it shall please God.

My thoughts about the points to be raised against me I have committed to the Lord God, to Whom I have appealed and Whom I chose before the commissioners as my judge, my proctor and my advocate,[9] in the plain words: “Let the Lord Jesus be my advocate and proctor, Who will shortly judge you all: to Him I have committed my cause, even as He Himself committed His cause to His Father.” It is He that hath said—and his lordship the doctor of Biberach repeats it: Think not, etc. For Christ said: Lay it up therefore in your hearts not to meditate before how you shall answer. For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist and gainsay.[10] On which the blessed Jerome[11] saith: “As if our Lord were to say openly: Fear not, be not terrified: you will come to a conflict, but I am the fighter: you utter words, but I am the speaker.” Then follow the words: And you shall be betrayed by your parents and brethren and kinsmen and friends: and some of you they will put to death. “Less pain do evils inflict which are inflicted by them that are without. But more fiercely do those tortures rage ​within us which we suffer at the hands of them on whose loyalty we presumed: for along with the body’s loss we are crucified by the pains of a lost love.” So Jerome.[12] My pain obviously proceeds from Palecz. Truly our doctor of Biberach rises above Lord Henry [Lacembok] and above Master John [Cardinalis], rector of Janowicz. As for the rest, please God, it shall be known hereafter. Let our doctor of Biberach carry out the lesson he has given me and let him keep the secret of my letters to himself,[13] for Christ saith: A man’s enemies shall be they of his own household.[14] Item, you shall be betrayed by your parents, etc.[15] Farewell, and all of you who are together, have constancy in Constance! Please give my greeting to all my friends but judiciously, lest they should say, “How do you know that he greeted us?”

  1. ↑ See p. 190.
  2. ↑ See the pseudo Dicta Catonis (vel Disticha de Moribus), ed. Némethy, Pesth, 1895, lib. ii. No. 31; a favourite mediæval book of rhymed proverbs, as we see in the Piers Plowman.
  3. ↑ Jer. xxix. 8.
  4. ↑ P. 79.
  5. ↑ Epist. Piissimæ: ‘Quisne negare potest per Lutherum factum esse.’
  6. ↑ i.e., of Biberach; see p. 155.
  7. ↑ P. 79.
  8. ↑ P.: coram mulis; an original uncorrected reading of the Ep. Piis. Read coram multis. No wonder Bonnechose was puzzled by the words!
  9. ↑ He was allowed no other. See p. 175.
  10. ↑ Luke xxi. 14 , 15
  11. ↑ See next page, n. 1.
  12. ↑ Not from Jerome at all, but loosely quoted from Bede’s In Lucæ Evang. Expositio, c. xxi. in loc. (ed. Giles or Migne).
  13. ↑ De literis—i.e., how Robert the gaoler brought them in and out as well as their existence. See also first sentence on p. 193, supra.
  14. ↑ Matt. x. 36.
  15. ↑ Luke xxi. 16.
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