Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/344



distinction from many writers on Hus, I have in this work frequently referred to the writings of the master—both Latin and Bohemian, and quoted them largely. These writings alone enable us to thoroughly conceive the real nature of Hus, who was entirely guided by religious and national enthusiasm, while the minutiae of mediaeval theological controversy did not greatly appeal to him. If he none the less became a skilful scholastic dialectician who at Constance was able to hold his own against very learned accusers, the reason is that such skill was for him a necessity. At a period when politics and religion were closely connected, the accusation of heresy was the most deadly arm that could be used to destroy an opponent. It was certain that those who disapproved of Hus’s endeavours to reform the Bohemian Church and to raise the Bohemian nation to a higher political and intellectual level would attempt to declare him a heretic. While some of the Latin works, particularly the ''Super IV. Sententiarum'', bear witness to Hus’s erudition, his true nature appears to us more clearly in the works which he composed in his own language. His Bohemian letters, though known in England and France only in second-hand translations, have long been read with interest, and I have in this work quoted largely the equally valuable Postilla and the Expositions (Vyklady). It will, therefore, be sufficient briefly to outline here the general complex of the writings of Hus. This, still a difficult task, would have been almost impossible before the appearance of Dr. Flajshans’s valuable bibliographical work. Many writings