Page 364 - Stati inu obstati, revija za vprašanja protestantizma, letnik XI (2015), številka 21-22, ISSN 1408-8363
P. 364
SYNOPSESYSN,OPZSEUS,SZUASAMMMMENEFANSSUFNAGESNSUNGEN
UDC 260.1:929 Hus J.
27-9"13/14"
Jonatan Vinkler
Text and context: De Ecclesia – M. Jan Hus’s fateful text
and its historical “context”’
The paper focuses on the historical and textual circumstances surrounding the most
important work of the Czech theologian Jan Hus – the Latin treatise De Ecclesia (1413).
This comprehensive work, comprising 23 chapters (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
finally the sentence on the Czech theologian presented before the Council was mainly com-
posed 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 “demolishes 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 professor John Wycliffe (1331–1384), namely
De Ecclesia (1378) and De potestate papae (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 Church and its
structure, indulgences and papal power signalizes the reproductive reception of Wycliffism
and thus through the semantic and operative fields of resistance against the supreme au-
thority of the papal throne reveals the intellectual historical link between Wycliffe, Hus and
his Bohemian and German historical successors – the Lutheran Reformation of the 16th
century. Like Hus in his treatise De Ecclesia, Martin Luther in his Resolutiones disputationum
de indulgentiarum virtute (1518), in comparable historical conditions, also primarily based
362
UDC 260.1:929 Hus J.
27-9"13/14"
Jonatan Vinkler
Text and context: De Ecclesia – M. Jan Hus’s fateful text
and its historical “context”’
The paper focuses on the historical and textual circumstances surrounding the most
important work of the Czech theologian Jan Hus – the Latin treatise De Ecclesia (1413).
This comprehensive work, comprising 23 chapters (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
finally the sentence on the Czech theologian presented before the Council was mainly com-
posed 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 “demolishes 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 professor John Wycliffe (1331–1384), namely
De Ecclesia (1378) and De potestate papae (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 Church and its
structure, indulgences and papal power signalizes the reproductive reception of Wycliffism
and thus through the semantic and operative fields of resistance against the supreme au-
thority of the papal throne reveals the intellectual historical link between Wycliffe, Hus and
his Bohemian and German historical successors – the Lutheran Reformation of the 16th
century. Like Hus in his treatise De Ecclesia, Martin Luther in his Resolutiones disputationum
de indulgentiarum virtute (1518), in comparable historical conditions, also primarily based
362
