The letters of John Hus/Hus Sets off without waiting for the Safe-conduct; Sealed Letters

by Jan Hus

Sigismund was anxious that Hus should journey in his suite. The Reformer would have fared better, as the King pleaded in his own excuse at a later date, if he had accepted the offer. Such, however, was his confidence in his own integrity, his eagerness to confront his enemies, that Hus set off without even waiting for the safe-conduct. As soon as he had received Sigismund’s official promise of the safe-conduct—dated Bothenburg, October 8—Hus started (October 11, 1414), leaving the formal document to overtake him as best it might. Hence the allusion in the following letter, written in Czech, to his congregation at the Bethlehem, immediately after his departure from Bohemia.^[1] This letter, we may add, fell into the hands of Hus’s enemies, and gave him much trouble at Constance, owing, as Hus avers, to the faulty way in which it was mis-translated into Latin. The latter part of the letter is very beautiful. At the same time Hus sent a sealed letter to ‘Master Martin, his disciple,’ which forms one of the treasures of the collection, invaluable for its insight into the tender, somewhat self-upbraiding, spirit of the writer. This letter (XXXV.) should be compared with similar passages in Bunyan’s Grace Abounding.

 

1. See p. 159, n. 2. But though not posted until after he left, Hus tells us himself (p. 159, n. 2) that it was written before the arrival of Chlum and Wenzel Duba. For Krakowec, see infra, p. 151.