Page 169 - Vinkler, Jonatan. 2021. »Češka gos«, Božji bojevniki, obstranci: češka »reformacija pred reformacijo« in njeni evropski ter slovenski konteksti, ideariji in imaginariji. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut
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Summary
Text and context: De Ecclesia – M. Jan Hus’s fateful text
and its historical “context”
The chapter focuses on the historical and textual circumstances surround
ing the most important work of the Czech theologian Jan Hus – the Latin
treatise De Ecclesia (1413). This comprehensive work, comprising 23 chap
ters (about 240 typed pages), was not only the medium that brought Hus’s
name to the church dignitaries gathered at the Council of Constance but also
proved to be fatal for the author himself. For the bill of indictment and fi
nally the sentence on the Czech theologian presented before the Council was
mainly composed on the basis of what he articulated in De Ecclesia. Another
factor contributing to the fame of this text was certainly the slogan created
at this Church Council that Hus’s critical thinking on the Church “demol
ishes the papacy just as much as Christianity demolishes the Koran”, while
up to the time of the first textual criticism research into Hus’s writings at
the end of the 19th century, De Ecclesia was considered the most important
and most original of his works. It was essentially influenced by at least two
treatises by the English theologian, Biblical scholar and university profes
sor John Wycliffe (1331–1384), namely De Ecclesia (1378) and De potestate pa-
pae (1378), while noticeable textually genealogical links with Wycliffe’s other
writings – De civili dominio, De blasphemia, De fide catholica, De paupertate
Christi, Ad argumenta aemuli – and with his sermons have been established.
Such a textual genealogy on the level of Wycliffe-Hus theology about the
169
Text and context: De Ecclesia – M. Jan Hus’s fateful text
and its historical “context”
The chapter focuses on the historical and textual circumstances surround
ing the most important work of the Czech theologian Jan Hus – the Latin
treatise De Ecclesia (1413). This comprehensive work, comprising 23 chap
ters (about 240 typed pages), was not only the medium that brought Hus’s
name to the church dignitaries gathered at the Council of Constance but also
proved to be fatal for the author himself. For the bill of indictment and fi
nally the sentence on the Czech theologian presented before the Council was
mainly composed on the basis of what he articulated in De Ecclesia. Another
factor contributing to the fame of this text was certainly the slogan created
at this Church Council that Hus’s critical thinking on the Church “demol
ishes the papacy just as much as Christianity demolishes the Koran”, while
up to the time of the first textual criticism research into Hus’s writings at
the end of the 19th century, De Ecclesia was considered the most important
and most original of his works. It was essentially influenced by at least two
treatises by the English theologian, Biblical scholar and university profes
sor John Wycliffe (1331–1384), namely De Ecclesia (1378) and De potestate pa-
pae (1378), while noticeable textually genealogical links with Wycliffe’s other
writings – De civili dominio, De blasphemia, De fide catholica, De paupertate
Christi, Ad argumenta aemuli – and with his sermons have been established.
Such a textual genealogy on the level of Wycliffe-Hus theology about the
169
