Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/236

 quently printed and translated into Bohemian, German, English, and French.

The Appellatio dates from August 1412, and almost at the same time Hus first wrote a short treatise, which he afterwards submitted to the Council of Constance, and which in consequence has become known as his protest to the council. Hus frequently refers in his other writings to this brief document, which is a short confession of faith. He repeatedly affirms in it that he is a faithful member of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the head and bridegroom of the holy church which he redeemed, and that he never had maintained and never would maintain any doctrine that was contrary to the truth, and that he was ready to lay down his life for the law of Christ.

Incessantly attacked as Hus was by opponents who were largely influenced by personal and egotistical motives, he naturally became engaged in frequent polemics. This applies to this period also, though not so exclusively as to the previous one. Of the polemical works written between 1412 and 1414 I will only mention two. One of these is the treatise entitled Replica Contra Prædicatorem Plznensem (A Reply to the Preacher of Plzen). It is very interesting as showing what outrageous pretensions the Bohemian clergy raised at this period. They explain to a great extent the stern disapproval and dislike of priests shown by many genuinely pious Bohemians at this time. The friends of Hus informed him that a preacher at Plzen had in his sermons raised strange—to a modern mind they appear blasphemous—claims on behalf of the clergy. The priest had stated, among other things, that the worst priest was better than the best layman, and that a priest when officiating was the father of God and the