IIuss had three hearings before the council; the first on the 5th of Jime (1415), the second on the 7th, and the third on the 8th. For the most part they were stormy.dcbates, or irregular phiUppics against him. He was not permitted to explain and defend his doctrines. An immecUate and explicit recantation was required of him, which he declined giving, unless convicted of her- esy by the testimony of Christ and his apostles, After the last hearing several weeks elapsed, in which everj^ conceivable eftbrt Avas made to induce him to recant. But he remained firm, and calmly prepared for death. On Saturday, Julj' G, he was once more cited before the comicil, condemned as a heretic, degraded from the priest- hood, and delivered into the hands of the secular power for execution. The proper officers immediately convey- ed him to the outskirts of the city, where, at about ten o'clock in the morning, he was burned &Yi\c at tlie stake, while the comicil continued in session. He suffered with the heroism of the early martyrs. His ashes were cast into the Ehine. A simple monument, erected by the present generation of his countrj-men, marks the spot. Erasmus pithDy said: "Joannes Hus exustus, non con- victus." The tradition of a peasant woman bringing a fagot to the pile, and moving him to exclaim " O sancta simplicitas !" is very doubtful ; the other tradition of a prophecy with regard to Luther, under the image of a swan, uttered by Huss on his way to execution, lacks all
historic basis. Jerome of Prague (q. v.), who had stood faithfully by the side of Huss, and, on the death of his friend, himself led the followers of the lamented Huss, soon suffered the same fate. The disturbances which then followed we treat under Hussites.
II. Huss's Literary Lahors. — Besides the many letters which Huss wrote, and which clearly set forth his theo- logical views, he was the author of fifteen Bohemian, and a large number of Latin works. Of the former, among which his Postills and Treatise on Simomj are particularly important, several have, unfortmiately, nev- er been translated, and others remain in manuscript. Of the latter, his Tructatus de Ecclesia deserves to be par- ticularly mentioned, together with the polemical treat- ises against Palec and Stanislaus, that form its supple- ments {Historia et Monumenta Joannis Hus, i, 243-331, ed. of 1715). Other of his Latin works are of an exe- getical character. He also composed numerous hymns and didactic hexameters. Many of his hymns were adopted by the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren, and some of them are stiU in use in the jNIoravian Church. Moreover, he carefully revised the old Bohemian version of the Bible, which had been translated as early as the loth century ; and, quite recently, Palacky, the great Bo- hemian antiquary and historian, has discovered a cate- chism in that language, which he supposes to be from the pen of Huss, and which, no doubt, formed the basis for the catechism of the Brethren, pubUshed in 1522. As a \mter of his mother language the merits of Huss cannot be overestimated. He purified it ; fixed etymo- logical and syntactical rules, and invented a new system of orthography, distinguished by its simplicity and pre- cision. It was brought into general use by the Bohe- mian and Moravian Brethren in the sixteenth century, since which time it has remained the acknowledged standard. Ulrich von Hutten was the first to publish the Latin works of Huss. The edition by O. Brunfels (Strasb. 1525, 4to, with woodcuts), is very scarce. A more complete edition appeared at Nuremberg m 1 558, entitled Historia et Monumenta Joannis Huss atque Hie- ronymi Pragensis, m two fol. volumes. Still more com- plete is the edition of 1715, which came out at the same place with the same title. A small but very important volume of his sermons, translated from a copy of the Bo- hemian Postills, brought to Herrnhut by the Moravian refugees, appeared at Gcirbtz in 1855. Its title reads as follows : Johannes Hus Predigten iiber die Sonii- und Fcst- tags-Evungelien des Kirchenjahrs. Aus der Bohmischen in die Deutsche iSpracke iibersetzt von Br. Johannes No- wotny. They are pre-eminently sermons for the times, and abound in polemics. His letters have been trans- lated into English (Edinb. 1859, 1 vol.) and other mod- ern languages. A collection of his writings in Bohemi- an was begmi by Erben (Prague, 18G4, etc.).
HI. Huss's Theological Views, and the Pri7ici])les of his Refoi-mution.—lhe views of Huss were moulded by the Avritings of two men in particular ; the one IMatthias of Janow, a Bohemian, the other Wickliffe, the English Keformer. He was attracted by the latter, inasmuch as AVickliffe always traced the truth up to its source in the New Testament, and desired to renew Christianity in its apostolic sense. Hence he made him his guide in those principles which he had, first of all, learned from Janow, but which "Wickliffe developed more fidly and consistent- ly. Not having passed through the same conflict which brought Luther into the inner sanctuarj' of divine grace, through Christ, and justification by faith, he did not turn his attention so much to doctrine as to practice, and set forth the Savioiu- of the world rather from the stand- point of that perfect law whereof he is the author, than from that of his redeeming work. As a necessary con- sequence, he uisisted more upon the reformation of the Church in regard to life than in regard to its unsound and corrupt dogmatical views. This was the weak point of his Reformation, bringing it to a premature end, and him to the stake. In order to success, an absolute reform of the dogmas of the Church was essential Huss