The Great Cloud of Witnesses · The Reformation
Jan Hus
c. 1372–1415Bohemian (Czech)Pre-Reformation reformer
The Prague preacher burned at the stake under a promise of safe conduct, singing as the fire was lit.
Summary
- Lived c. 1372–1415, Bohemian (Czech).
- Stood in The Reformation (1500–1600).
- Hangs on The Reformers and The Martyrs.
- Tradition: Pre-Reformation reformer.
The life
Jan Hus preached to thousands at Prague's Bethlehem Chapel in their own Czech language, an act nearly as radical as what he preached, which was Wycliffe's conviction that Christ, not the pope, is head of the church, and that Scripture judges councils rather than the other way around. Summoned to the Council of Constance under an imperial promise of safe conduct, he was arrested on arrival, kept in chains, and asked only to recant. He answered that he could not recant what he had never taught, nor deny what Scripture taught.
He was burned on July 6, 1415, reportedly singing until the fire took his voice. A century later Luther, accused of being a Hussite, read Hus's writings and said: 'We are all Hussites without knowing it.'
What was happening while he lived2 moments · AD 600–1500
- 1382–1395The Bible in English, and the LollardsJohn Wycliffe (d. 1384) argued that Scripture, not church custom, is the final authority, and that a plowman had a right to read it. The English Bible that carries his name came out of his circle, translated from the Latin, hand-copied, and carried around by poor preachers called Lollards. Scholars still debate how much Wycliffe translated himself.
- 1415Jan Hus burned at ConstanceThe Bohemian preacher came to the council under the emperor's written safe conduct, was tried anyway, and was burned on July 6. The same council condemned Wycliffe; in 1428 his bones were dug up, burned, and thrown into the River Swift.
Go further
Read them yourself. Public-domain works are free to read in full; the rest open where the book can be found.
Search Jan Hus at the Internet Archive · every work MannaFest cites
Why this one hangs here
Preached Christ as head of the church in Prague's own language, and sang at the stake in 1415.
Hangs on The Reformers: The men who put the Bible back into the people's hands and the church back under it. Hangs on The Martyrs: The witnesses who paid with their lives, from the arena at Carthage to the present day, and the confessors who paid with everything short of their lives.
Standing beside himThe Reformation · 19 on this stretch of wall
Argued that Scripture belonged to the people in their own tongue, and set in motion the English Bible that carries his name, made by his Oxford circle a century and a half before Tyndale. They burned his bones, and the river carried the ashes to the sea.
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Sent ninety-five theses against indulgences to his archbishop, and later, before the emperor, would not take back a word of what he had written.
Finished what Tyndale could not and printed the first complete English Bible from a press, and four years later put the Great Bible in every parish church.
Put the church's prayers into plain English, then took back his own recantation and burned for it.
Translated the New Testament from the Greek so a plough-boy could read it, and paid for it at a stake in 1536.
Left a safe parish to shepherd hunted believers, and taught them to follow Christ without ever picking up a sword.