Jan Hus:* The Goose of Bohemia
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On July 6, 1415, Jan Hus stepped from the wooden platform in the Cathedral of Constance. Thousands of anxious eyes followed him. He had just heard a sermon from Romans 6:6 “that the body of sin might be done away with.” Hus was the “body of sin.” It was the day of his condemnation and execution.
Seven bishops stepped forward and removed his filthy, lice-infested prison garments. They clothed him in clean priestly garments. They placed a chalice of wine in his right hand. Then, to symbolize his degradation from the priesthood, they stripped the priest’s robes from his back and the chalice from his hand. They chained his gaunt, withered hands behind his back and led him away to receive the dreaded punishment du jourfor heresy—burning at the stake.
The authorities protected him with armed soldiers. They were nervous. Hus was popular with the vast crowd thronging the road he would walk to his execution. His simple sermons preached in the common dialect—not the Latin used by most priests—had stirred their peasant hearts. They knew holiness and purity when they saw it. Even his most strident enemies could find no blemish in his moral character.
To complicate matters, the morning of his trial (June 7) a lunar eclipse obscured the sun for several hours. This further convinced the people that God was unhappy with Hus’ brutal, unjust treatment by the Roman Catholic authorities. All nerves were on edge as Hus walked toward his execution.
The summer of 1415 was filled with great confusion. Christendom was divided between three competitors for the papal throne. Each claimed infallibility, and each used his power to excommunicate and condemn his competitors. The emperor had called the Council of Constance to resolve the confusion. Hus, under a promise of safe conduct, had been invited to come and explain his controversial views about the teachings of the English reformer, John Wyclif.
Walking the talk
How naive he had been to trust the emperor’s promise. Only 10 months before, he had confidently left Prague for Constance. His reputation for spiritual power, holiness, and eloquence had preceded him. Great crowds lined the road cheering him on. He was wined and dined by the authorities and asked to speak in each town’s cathedral. And the people were not disappointed by Hus’ message. He stressed moral, spiritual, and doctrinal renewal, and protested the corruption of the clergy. The people, famished for the simplicity and power of God’s Word, listened enthusiastically.
Shortly after his arrival in Constance, the emperor maliciously broke his promise. On the day of his execution, Hus limped in a broken body emaciated by 7 months in a rat-infested, subterranean, medieval cell. By night the jailor chained him to the stony cell wall. Toothaches, gallstones, fevers, and bouts of vomiting had persistently tormented him. At one point he almost starved to death, but the emperor fed him so the authorities would not be deprived of his burning.
The disillusioned crowds watched him pass in silence. It seemed that whenever God raised up a leader of truth and integrity, the authorities broke him. Although they were used to it, there was nothing they could do, and they felt bitter and cynical. Was he really guilty, some wondered? Maybe the authorities were right.
The chains cut his wrists, and with his little remaining strength he struggled to carry his gaunt body. Burning at the stake was grisly business. The fortunate died quickly. But for some, it took 45 minutes or longer. How would it be for him? Paul’s words from 2 Corinthians 4:17,18, may have encouraged him: “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen” (NIV). He had written a friend that God would either douse the flames or fortify him with courage to endure the fiery ordeal. He would trust God, not himself.
Youth remembered
How ironic that he should die for the truths recovered by John Wyclif. Unlike Hus, his hero had died in bed.
Hus’ first exposure to Wyclif’s writings came as Hus was finishing his degree at the University of Prague. At first Wyclif offended him. Too radical, he thought. So different from the traditions taught by others. But when he went to the Bible, his arguments against Wyclif’s reasoning dissolved. It was revolutionary material, for Wyclif taught liberty of conscience and the priesthood of every believer that follows the elevation of Scripture above the teachings of men.
Hus knew intuitively how costly these radical ideas would be. The cement that bound Christendom was the authority of the papacy. To put Scripture above the Pope was to threaten the very fabric of medieval life and culture.
He remembered his happy years at the University of Prague when he and his friends read Wyclif, then the Bible, to see if Wyclif was right. They met to discuss God’s radical truths and pray. The University of Prague was on the cutting edge, and there was a sense of great exhilaration to be living in the middle of such radical change.
A ministry of power
Although he was an average student, he earned his bachelors and then his masters degree. He remembered the joy of his ordination and his first experience of preaching in the power of God. His gift made way for him. In 1402, when he was 30, Bethlehem Chapel, the great Prague preaching station, asked him to be its pastor. There he preached God’s Word twice each day. An unusual anointing was upon him. Within a short time, the hungry crowds flowed over into the surrounding streets.
He remembered how his growing joy in God’s Word at Bethlehem Chapel matched his growing detestation of the iniquities of his fellow priests. Celibacy was a joke. Many clergy blatantly lived with concubines. Some had children and grandchildren. How his anger had risen when Pope John XXIII had sold the forgiveness of sins to ignorant peasants to raise an army to wage war against the City of Naples.
Like John the Baptist, he was deeply grieved by the king, the nobles, the prelates, the clergy, and the citizens who together indulged in avarice, pride, drunkenness, lewdness, and every profligacy. In the midst of this he stood like an incarnate conscience. Who is equal to such a task? He was not. It had taken God’s courage and strength.
He had enjoyed 12 good years at Bethlehem Chapel. They were the best of his life. With joy he watched God use his preaching to change the hearts and lives of thousands. The queen had even requested him as her confessor. The city of Prague, and the whole nation of Bohemia, had begun to turn to Christ. Inspired by the condemned writings of John Wyclif, he continued to preach God’s Word.
He understood that his growing fame and popularity threatened the papacy’s control of Bohemia. He remembered the interdict placed by the Pope on Prague. To protect Prague, he retreated into the country. And now here he was. He had always said, “It is better to die well than to live badly.” He would need all of God’s grace to die well.
The marshal buckled the rusty iron collar around his neck and fastened it to the metal stake. The silent crowd stared apprehensively. The soldiers piled straw and wood to his chin.
Perhaps he thought, Will I have a legacy? Has my life been in vain? But God had promised: “They will silence the goose (Hus means goose in Czech), but in 100 years I will raise a swan from your ashes that no one will be able to silence.” “God, give me strength,” he prayed. “My hope is in You. I have no strength of my own.”
Louis of Bavaria, the marshal, approached and begged Hus to renounce his errors and preserve his life. “What errors shall I renounce?” asked Hus. “I know myself guilty of none. I call God to witness that all that I have written and preached has been with the view of rescuing souls from sin and perdition; and, therefore, most joyfully will I confirm with my blood that truth which I have written and preached.”
The marshal ordered the flames lit, and as they rose, Hus began to sing, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” After three verses the flames scorched and muffled Hus’ voice. Finally, the singing stopped. Fortified by God’s grace, Hus perished in the furnace of affliction for the glory of God. Of such men this world is not worthy.
Postscript
When the news of John’s betrayal and burning reached Prague, civil unrest erupted. The people had tasted the truth of Hus’ preaching and there was no turning back.
The Pope raised an army of 150,000 and invaded Bohemia. Hopelessly outnumbered, Jan Zizka, a fiery one-eyed soldier, led the Hussite armies to 5 consecutive victories over a 15-year period. The Hussite triumphs, with Zizka at their head, are one of history’s too little told, but amazing stories. Using tactics 200 years ahead of his time—and sometimes outnumbered 10 to 1—Zizka mobilized a peasant army and repeatedly defeated Europe’s best professional armies. “A greater miracle has not been recorded in the annals of war,” wrote Lynn Montross.
God fulfilled His promise to Hus. One hundred and two years later, Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to the door of his Wittenberg church, and the Reformation began. Jan Hus did not die in vain.
*Jan Hus is also known as John Huss.
Bibliography
Schaff, Philip. History of the Christian Church, 3rd ed., vol. 6. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishing Company, 1996.
Wylie, J. A. History of Protestantism, Vol. 1. www.doctrine.org/history/
Fudge, Thomas A.“To Build a Fire.” Christian History (Fall 2000): 10.
Montross, Lynn. War Through the Ages. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1960.