The Interpretation of Jan Hus from the Beginning Through the Enlightenment

The Interpretation of Jan Hus from the Beginning through the Enlightenment

Zdeněk V. David

A Saint: Utraquist Church – Defective Reformer: Luther’s View – Lesser Evil: Irenic Catholics – Heretic: Tridentine Catholics – Imaginary Radical: Anglicans and Puritans – Revered Precursor: Calvinist Camp – Liberal Catholic: Josephist Enlightenment

A great fluctuation is evident in tracing the history of the interpretation of Jan Hus. At home in Bohemia, he first emerged as a saint of the Utraquist Church in the fifteenth century, while abroad, by the early sixteenth century, he began to acquire moderate features in the reciprocal relationship between Luther’s view of him as a defective reformer and the irenic Catholics’ view of him as a ‘lesser evil.’ Then, by the late sixteenth and the seventeenth century, he moved on to acquire a radical image in the eyes of the Tridentine Catholic theologians, the English Reformers (both Anglicans and Puritans), and the Calvinists, only to return temporarily to an orthodox status of a liberal Catholic in his native Bohemia under the Josephist Enlightenment.

A Saint: Utraquist Church

Although not considered a founder or even a principal theologian of a new church, the Utraquist Church (1420–1622) nevertheless adopted Hus as a saint for his effort of purging the traditional church of distortions, introducing his elevated status in the High Middle Ages. His sainthood was sealed by the martyrdom at the Council of Constance. Utraquist liturgical books attest to the veneration of Hus in the fifteenth and sixteenth century.1

1 “Bohoslužebná skládání o Husovi z XV a XVI století,” in Fontes rerum Bohemicarum VIII, ed. Václav Novotný (Prague, 1932), especially 431–444, 458–472; David R. Holeton, “The Office of Jan Hus: An Unrecorded Antiphonary in the Metropolitan Library of Estergom,” in Time and Continuity, ed. J. Neil Alexander (Washington, d.c., 1990), 141–142. Early evidence on the cult of Hus is gathered in Thomas Fudge, The Magnificant Ride: The First Reformation in Hussite Bohemia (Brookfield, 1998), 125–135. For a survey of Hus’s representation as an Utraquist saint, see also Martina Šárovcová, “Jan Hus in Illuminated Manuscripts of the Bohemian Renaissance,” The Bohemian Reformation and Religious Practice 8 (2011), published as Filosofický časopis: Special Issue Number 3: 286–314.

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Symbolizing the centrist position of their denomination, the first two administrators of the Utraquist Church and its leading theologians, John of Příbram (1439–1448) and particularly John Rokycana (1448–1471), juxtaposed the points where Hus differed from the current practice of the Roman Church with the points in which Hus – despite the criticism by religious radicals, such as the Taborites – retained traditional Roman practices. Příbram focused on the latter issue in his treatise of 1430, where he defended Hus against the accu- sations of adopting Wyclif’s non-traditional views on the Eucharist.2 More spe- cifically, Příbram pointed out that Hus condemned Wyclif’s idea of remanence in 1408, rejecting its two cardinal principles: that, in the Eucharist, material bread remains in the sacrament; and that accidents could not exist without a substance, which would undermine the idea of transubstantiation.3 Rokycana referred to Hus in his theological works more often than any other early Bohemian Reformer, except for Matthias of Janov.4 Turning his attention to the complex and delicate issue of Hus’s definition of the Church, he often cited from Hus’s treatise De ecclesia, for instance, from chapter 7 on the three reasons why the Church is called ‘Roman,’5 and also reproduced quotes from Hus’s Postilla in regard to the three persons of the Trinity.6 As for his critique of Roman practices, Rokycana praised Hus for having chastized priests and monastics for their indolent and epicurean lifestyles.7 He also highlighted Hus’s support for communion in both kinds for the laity, pointing out that Hus had approved the practice when he was imprisoned in Constance and had reproved the priest Havel who opposed it, as well as the Council of Constance, which prohibited the custom altogether.8 Rokycana dwelt on the holiness of Hus who, as an exemplary priest, was exposed to the hatred and persecution that Christ predicted would fall upon his faithful disciples.9 Like Christ, Hus was subjected to many calumnies and

2 John Příbram, “Liber de professione fidei catholicae, et errorum revocatione,” in Johannes Cochlaeus, Historiae Hussitarum (Mainz, 1549), 512. 3 Ibid., 539–540. 4 František Šimek, Učení M. Jana Rokycany (Prague, 1938) Rozpravy České akademie věd a umění, třída III, číslo 77, 30. 5 Ibid., 40n1. 6 Compared to reason, memory, and will; Šimek, Učení M. Jana Rokycany, 90; see also John Rokycana, Postilla, ed. František Šimek, 2 vols. (Prague, 1928–29), II, 118–120. He also endorsed Hus’s great respect for Saint Augustine; Šimek, Učení M. Jana Rokycany, 7, 12. 7 Council thus acted against the injunction of St Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:23; Šimek, Učení M. Jana Rokycany, Rozpravy, 73. 8 Rokycana, Postilla, I, 692–694. 9 Šimek, Učení M. Jana Rokycany, 52.