Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/301

 Christ’s truth, reject unworthy fears, confirm the other brethren in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The arguments in favour of communion with the chalice thou wilt find in what I have written in Constance. Greet the faithful in Christ.”

Several of Hus’s last Bohemian letters addressed “to the faithful Bohemians” (vernym Cechum) are of the highest interest. Following on the condemnation of utraquism decreed by the council on June 15, that assembly had on June 23 decreed that all Hus’s writings should be burnt. This included Hus’s works written in his own language, which most of the members of the council were unable to understand. The informer Palec may have acted as translator, but it is more probable that he only submitted to the council extracts selected by him which afforded a sufficient pretext for the destruction of the books. Hus refers to this matter in several letters; in one dated June 24, and probably intended to be read to the congregation at Bethlehem, : “Beloved, I exhort you not to tremble or to be struck down by fear because they have condemned my books to be burnt. Remember that they burnt the prophecies of Jeremiah, which God had ordered him to write; yet did they not escape that which he had prophesied; for after they had been burnt God commanded that they (the prophecies) should again be written down and more words added. This was done. He (Jeremiah), being in prison, dictated, and the saintly Baruch, his secretary, wrote down his words; as is written in Jeremiah, chapter xxxv. or lv. Similarly is it written in the books of the Machabees that the law of God was burnt and that they tortured those who possessed it. Then in the time of the New Testament they burnt the holy men, together with the books of God’s law. Thus the cardinals condemned the books of