John Hus (Jan Hus) was born in Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic) in about 1371. He received a master's degree from Charles University in Prague in 1396, became a professor of theology in 1398, was ordained to the priesthood in 1400, was made rector of the University in 1402, and in 1404 received a bachelor's degree in theology (presumably a more advanced degree than the term suggests today).

John Hus was a student of John Wycliffe (also spelled: Wicliffe), who translated the Bible into English in 1382. Wycliffe advocated the right of the common man to read the Bible in his own language. Both Wycliffe and Hus believed scripture to supercede the dogmas and ordinances of the church and both declared the Papacy to be the AntiChrist foretold in scripture. John Hus was burned alive* at the stake in 1414 for his "heresy" and rebellion against Catholic authority.

As regards the function of Christ as the one Mediator between God and man, Hus was at one with Wycliffe. The English Reformer carried out his doctrine, with the strength and joy of a full conviction, to its logical issue, in the entire repudiation of the veneration and intercession of the saints. Hus, on the other hand, grasping the glorious truth of Christ's sole mediatorship more feebly, was never able to shake himself wholly free from a dependence on the intercession and good offices of the glorified. Nor were the views of Hus on the doctrine of the Sacraments nearly so well defined or so accordant with Scripture as those of Wycliffe; and, as has been already said, he believed in transubstantiation to the end. On the question of the Pope's authority he more nearly approximated Wycliffe's views; Hus denied the divine right of the Bishop of Rome to the primacy of the Church, and wished to restore the original equality which he held existed among the bishops of the Church. Wycliffe would have gone farther; equality among the priests and not merely among the bishops would alone have contented him.

It would seem that after a time Wycliffe's opinions almost died out in England. But meanwhile they, or opinions very like them, were eagerly taken up in Bohemia. Among those who thus became acquainted with Wycliffe's opinions was a young man named John Hus. He had been an admirer of Wycliffe's philosophical works; but when he first met with his reforming books, he was so little taken with them that he wished they were thrown into the Moldau, the river which runs through Prague, the chief city of Bohemia. But Hus soon came to think differently, and heartily took up almost all Wycliffe's doctrines.

Hus made many enemies among the clergy by attacking their faults from the pulpit of a chapel called Bethlehem, where he was preacher. From time to time some doctrines which were said to be Wycliffe's were condemned at Prague. Hus usually declared that Wycliffe had been wrongly understood, and that his real meaning was true and innocent. Hus also openly denounced the bulls of the antipope John XXIII against King Lancelot of Naples and preached against indulgences. But at length a decree was passed that all Wycliffe's books should be burnt (AD 1410), and thereupon a grand bonfire was made in the courtyard of the archbishop's palace, while all the church bells of the city were tolled as at a funeral. But as some copies of the books escaped the flames, it was easy to make new copies from these. Hus was excommunicated, but he still went on teaching. During his two years of exile he wrote his chief works, including the De ecclesia, which increasingly reflected Wycliffe's influence. He denied the infallibility of an immoral pope, asserted the ultimate authority of Scripture over the church, and accorded the state the right and duty to supervise the church. Because of these ideas he is generally considered a forerunner of the Protestant Reformation.

John Wycliffe died at Lutterworth (near Leicester, England) December 31, 1384..  In 1428, John Wycliffe's bones were exhumed and burned according to papal command. The dust was then dumped in a river.

Both Wycliffe and Hus were unfairly treated with contempt by the Church for denying indulgences paid to the Church in any way remediated any sin.  Both rightfully taught that the Bible should be presented to the people in the language of the people, that salvation comes only by faith in Jesus Christ, and the Word of God (and no pope in Rome) is the final authority.  John Hus was summoned to the Council of Constance and promised safety, but he was betrayed.  In the end, Hus was accused, imprisoned, and charged with heresy.  John Hus was then condemned and burned at the stake as a heretic.  He died singing on July 6, 1415.

In 1412, the Pope proclaimed a crusade against Ladislaus, King of Naples, with whom he had quarreled, and ordered that it should be preached, and that money should be collected for it all through Latin Christendom. Hus and his chief friend, whose name was Jerome, set themselves against this with all their might. They declared it to be unchristian that a crusade should be proclaimed against a Christian prince, and that the favors of the Church should be held out as a reward for paying money or for shedding of blood. One day, as a preacher was inviting people to buy his indulgences (as they were called) for the forgiveness of sins, he was interrupted by three young men, who told him that what he said was untrue, and that Master Hus had taught them better. The three were seized, and were condemned to die; and, although it would seem that a promise was afterwards given that their lives should be spared, the sentence of death was carried into effect. John Hus was burnt at the stake. The people were greatly provoked by this, and when the executioner, after having cut off the heads of the three, proclaimed (as was usual), "Whosoever shall do the like, let him look for the like!" a cry burst forth from the multitude around, "We are ready to do and to suffer the like." Women dipped their handkerchiefs in the blood of the victims, and treasured it up as a precious relic. Some of the crowd even licked the blood. The bodies were carried off by the people, and were buried in Bethlehem chapel; and Hus and others spoke of the three as martyrs.

By this affair his enemies were greatly provoked. Fresh orders were sent from Rome for the destruction of Wycliffe's books, and for uttering all the heaviest sentences of the Church against Hus himself. He therefore left Prague for a time, and lived chiefly in the castles of Bohemian noblemen who were friendly to him, writing busily as well as preaching against what he supposed to be the errors of the Roman Church.

In the day of John Hus, there was a crisis of authority in the Western Church. In 1305, under pressure from the King of France, the seat of the Popes was move from Rome to Avignon in France, where it remained for 70 years. (This period is called the Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy, suggesting the 70 years that Jerusalem lay desolate after when the Jews were deported to Babylon.) In 1376, the then pope returned to Rome. When he died soon after, the cardinals, mostly French, were disposed to elect a French Pope, but the people of Rome objected, fearing that a French Pope would move the Papacy back to France. The cardinals therefore elected an Italian Pope, and then fled elsewhere, where they elected a French Pope and said that the first election had been under duress, and was void. Thus there were two (later three) claimants for the Papal Office.

Pope John XXIII, Pope Gregory XII and Pope Benedict XIII were invited by the royals of Europe to attend a council

In Constance, Switzerland. This council was held on the 5th of November, 1414. The reason for this council was

To take up the problem of 3 Popes in the Church and the church division it caused. Only Pope John XXIII attended, as Popes Gregory and Benedict declined. Pope John XXIII entered Constance with great pomp.

In the fourth and fifth sessions it was solemnly decreed that a General Council is superior to the Pope. "A Synod congregate in the Holy Ghost," so ran the decree, "making a General Council, representing the whole Catholic Church here militant, hath power of Christ immediately, to the which power every person, of what state or dignity soever he be, yea, being the Pope himself, ought to be obedient in all such things as concern the general reformation of the Church, as well in the Head as in the members." The Council in this decree asserted its absolute and supreme authority, and affirmed the subjection of the Pope in matters of faith as well as manners to its judgment.

The case of the other two Popes was simpler, and more easily disposed of. They had already been condemned by the Council of Pisa, which had put forth an earlier assertion than the Council of Constance of the supremacy of a Council, and its right to deal with heretical and simoniacal Popes. Angelus Corario, Gregory XII., voluntarily sent in his resignation; and Peter de Lune, Benedict XIII., was deposed; and Otta de Colonna, being unanimously elected by the cardinals, ruled the Church under the title of Martin V.

It was proposed at this council that all the three popes should resign, and that a new pope should be chosen. In answer to this, John said that he was ready to resign if the others would do the same, but it soon became clear that he did not mean to keep his promise honestly. He tried by all manner of tricks to ward off the dangers which surrounded him; and, after he had more than once tried in vain to get away from Constance, he was able to escape one day when the members of the council were amusing themselves at a tournament given by a prince whom John had persuaded to take on their attention in this way. The council, however, in his absence went on to examine the charges against him, many of which were so shocking that they were kept secret, out of regard for his office. John, by letters and messengers, asked for delay, and did all that he could for that purpose; but, notwithstanding all his arts, he was sentenced to be deposed from the papacy for simony (that is, for trafficking in holy things-p 185) and for other offences. On being informed of this on May 31, 1415, he at once put off his papal robes, saying, that since he had put them on he had never enjoyed a quiet day.

In striking contrast to the ostentatious display of his arrival, was the mean disguise in which Pope John XXII sought to conceal his departure. The plan of his escape had been arranged beforehand between himself and his good friend and staunch protector, the Duke of Austria. The duke, on a certain day, was to give a tournament. The spectacle was to come off late in the afternoon; and while the whole city should be engrossed with the fete, the lords tilting in the arena and the citizens gazing at the mimic war, and oblivious of all else, the deposed Pope would take leave of Constance and of the Council.

When the deposed Pope's flight became known, all was in commotion at Constance. The Council was at an end, so every one thought; the flight of the Pope would be followed by the departure of the princes and the emperor: the merchants shut their shops and packed up their wares, only too happy if they could escape pillage from the lawless mob into whose hands, as they believed, the town had now been thrown. After the first moments of consternation, however, the excitement calmed down. The emperor mounted his horse and rode round the city, declaring openly that he would protect the Council, and maintain order and quiet; and thus things in Constance returned to their usual channel.

The one point on which Hus could be said to have a doctrinal difference with the Council was that he taught that the office of the pope did not exist by Divine command, but was established by the Church that things might be done in an orderly fashion (a view that he shared with Thomas More). The Council, having just narrowly succeeded in uniting Western Christendom under a single pope after years of chaos, was not about to have its work undone. It accordingly found him guilty of heresy.

With a promise of safe passage to and from, John Hus was summoned to this council at Constance, that he might give an account of himself. He was shut up in a dark and filthy prison. Hus had no friends in the Council; for the reforming part of the members could have nothing to do with him, lest it should be thought that they agreed with him in all his notions. And when he was at length brought out from prison, where his health had suffered much, and when he was required to answer for himself, without having been allowed the use of books to prepare himself, all the parties in the council turned on him at once. His trial lasted three days. The charges against him were mostly about Wycliffe's doctrines, which had been often condemned by councils at Rome and elsewhere, but which Hus was supposed to hold; and when he tried to explain that in some things he did not agree with Wycliffe, nobody would believe him. Some of his bitterest persecutors were men who had once been his friends, and had gone with him in his reforming opinions.

Then they took away the tokens of his being a deacon, and so they stripped him of his other orders, one after another; and when at last they had turned him back into a layman, they led him away to be burnt on July 6, 1415. He bore his death with great patience and courage; and then his ashes and such scorched bits of his dress as remained were thrown into the Rhine, lest his followers should treasure them up as relics.

The news of Hus's death naturally raised a general feeling of anger in Bohemia, where his followers treated his memory as that of a saint, and kept a festival in his honor. And when the emperor Sigismund succeeded his brother Wenceslaus in the kingdom of Bohemia, in 1419, he found that he was hated by his new subjects on account of his share in the death of Hus.

But, although most of the Bohemians might now be called Husites, there were great divisions among the Husites themselves. Some had lately begun to insist that in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper both the bread and the wine should be given to all the people, according to our Lord's own example, instead of allowing no one but the priest to receive the wine, according to the Roman practice. These people who insisted on the sacramental cup were called Calixtines, from the Latin calix, which means a cup or chalice. But among those who agreed in this opinion there were serious differences as to some other points.

After the death of John Hus, his followers continued to insist on the importance of administering the Holy Communion in both kinds, and defeated several armies sent against them. In 1436 a pact was signed, by which the Church in Bohemia was authorized to administer Chalice as well as Host to all communicants. The followers of John Hus and his fellow martyr Jerome of Prague became known as the Czech Brethren and later as the Moravians. The Moravian Church survives to this day, and has had a considerable influence on the Lutheran movement. When Luther suddenly became famous after the publication of his 95 Theses, cartoons and graffiti began to appear implying that Luther was the spiritual heir of John Hus. When Luther encountered the Pope's representative Johannes Eck, in a crucial debate, Eck sidestepped the questions of indulgences and of justification by faith, and instead asked Luther whether the Church had been right to condemn Hus. When Luther, after thinking it over, said that Hus had been unjustly condemned, the whole question of the authority of Popes and Councils was raised.

In the summer of 1419, the first public communion was celebrated at a place where the town of Tabor was afterwards built. It was a very different kind of ceremony from what had been usual. There were three hundred altars, but they were without any covering; the chalices were of wood, the clergy wore only their every-day dress; and a love-feast followed, at which the rich shared with their poorer brethren. The wilder party among the Husites were called Taborites, from Tabor, which became the chief abode of this party. They now took to putting their opinions into practice. They declared churches and their ornaments, pictures, images, organs, and the like, to be abominable; and they went about in bands, destroying everything that they thought superstitious. And thus Bohemia, which had been famous for the size and beauty of its churches, was so desolated that hardly a church was left in it; and those which are now standing have almost all been built since the time when the Husites destroyed the older churches.

It was resolved to elect a pope without further delay. The choice was to be made by the cardinals and some others who were joined with them. On St. Martin's day, the 11th of November, 1417 these electors were all shut up in the Exchange of Constance-a building which is still seen there. While the election was going on, multitudes of all ranks, and even the emperor himself among them, went from time to time in slow procession round the Exchange chanting in a low tone Litanies, in which they prayed that the choice of the electors might be guided for the good of the Church. And when at last an opening was made in the wall from within, and through it a voice proclaimed, "We have a pope: Lord Otho of Colonna!" the news spread at once through all of Constance. The new Pope styled himself Martin V. The people seemed to be wild with joy that the division of the Church, which had lasted so long, was now healed. All the bells of the town pealed forth joyfully, and it is said that a crowd of not less than 80,000 people hurried at once to the Exchange. The emperor in his delight threw himself at the new pope's feet; and for hours together vast numbers thronged the cathedral, where the pope was placed on the high altar, and gave them his blessing. But the joy which had been shown at his election was more than the effect warranted. The council had chosen a pope before taking up the reform of the Church; and the new pope was no friend to reform. During the rest of the time that the council was assembled, he did all that he could to thwart attempts at reform; and when, at the end of it, he rode away from Constance, with the emperor holding his bridle on one side and one of the chief German princes on the other, while a crowd of princes, nobles, clergy, and others, as many as 40,000, accompanied him, it seemed as if the pope had got above all the sovereigns of the world.

A holy war was planned by the Church, and vast armies, made up from all nations of Europe, were gathered for the invasion of Bohemia. One of these crusades was led by Cardinal Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, and great-uncle of King Henry VI of England; another, by a famous Italian cardinal, Julian Cesarini. But the courage and fury of the Bohemians, with their savage appearance and their strange manner of fighting, drove back all assaults, with immense loss, in one campaign after another, until Cesarini, the leader in the last crusade, was convinced that there was no hope of putting the Bohemians down by force, and that some other means must be tried.

A little before the year 1500, one of the greatest works ever done was the vast church of St. Peter, at Rome which was built atop the ancient church, which had stood since the time of Constantine the Great. There were several architects who carried on the building of this great church, one after another; but the grand dome of St. Peter's, which rises into the air over the whole city, was the work of Michael Angelo, who was not only a painter, but an architect and a sculptor.

It was by offering indulgences (or spiritual favors, forgiveness of sins, and the like) as a reward for gifts towards the new St. Peter's, that "soldier Pope" Julius II (pope from 1503 to 1513) raised the anger and disgust of the German reformer, Martin Luther. And thus it was the building of the most magnificent of Roman churches that led to the revolt which took away from the popes a great part of their spiritual dominion.

In the course of all these hundreds of years, Christian religion had been much corrupted from its first purity. The power of the clergy over the ignorant people had become far greater than it ought to have been; and too commonly it was kept up by the encouragement of superstitions and abuses. The popes claimed supreme power on earth. They claimed the right of setting up and plucking down emperors and kings. They meddled with appointments to sees, parishes, and all manner of offices in the Church, throughout all Western Europe. They wished to make it appear as if bishops had no authority except what they held through the grant of the pope. There were general complaints against the faults of the clergy, and among the mass of men religion had become in great part little better than an affair of forms. From all quarters cries for reform were raised, and a reform was speedily to come, by which, among other things, our own country was set flee from the power of the popes, and the doctrine of our Church was brought back to an agreement with Holy Scripture and with the Christianity of early times.

Martin Luther, ordained in 1507, challenged the Traditions of the Roman Catholic Church and coined the phrase Sola Scriptura, meaning the Bible only. 

In 1512, seven convents of his order having a quarrel with their vicar-general, Luther was chosen to go to Rome to maintain their cause. At Rome he saw the pope and the court, and had an opportunity of observing also the manners of the clergy, whose hasty, superficial, and impious way of celebrating Mass, he has severely noted. As soon as he had adjusted the dispute which was the business of his journey, he returned to Wittenberg, and was created doctor of divinity, at the expense of Frederic, elector of Saxony; who had often heard him preach, was perfectly acquainted with his merit, and reverenced him highly.

He continued in the University of Wittenberg, where, as professor of divinity, he employed himself in the business of his calling. Here then he began in the most earnest manner to read lectures upon the sacred books: he explained the Epistle to the Romans, and the Psalms, which he cleared up and illustrated in a manner so entirely new, and so different from what had been pursued by former commentators, that "there seemed, after a long and dark night, a new day to arise, in the judgment of all pious and   prudent men."

Luther diligently reduced the minds of men to the Son of God: as John the Baptist demonstrated the Lamb of God that took away the sins of the world, even so Luther, shining in the Church as the bright daylight after a long and dark night, expressly showed that sins are freely remitted for the love of the Son of God, and that we ought faithfully to embrace this bountiful gift.

Upon the eve of All-saints in 1517 Luther posted 95 thesis to the door of the church in Wittenburg, challenging the authority of the Papacy and the sale of Indulgences. he challenged any one to oppose it either by writing or disputation. Luther's propositions about indulgences were no sooner published, than Tetzel, the Dominican friar, and commissioner for selling them, maintained and published at Frankfort, a thesis, containing a set of propositions directly contrary to them. He did more; he stirred up the clergy of his order against Luther; anathematized him from the pulpit, as a most damnable heretic; and burnt his thesis publicly at Frankfort. Tetzel's thesis was also burnt, in return, by the Lutherans at Wittenberg; but Luther himself disowned having had any hand in that procedure.  Martin Luther also declared the Papacy to be "nothing else than the kingdom of Babylon and of very Anti Christ" in his book On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church. Luther also translated the Bible into German, so that the German people could read scripture for themselves, in their own language.

In 1518, Luther, though dissuaded from it by his friends, yet, to show obedience to authority, went to the monastery of St. Augustine, at Heidelberg, while the chapter was held; and here maintained, April 26, a dispute concerning "justification by faith"; which Bucer, who was present at, took down in writing, and afterward communicated to Beatus Rhenanus, not without the highest commendations.

In the meantime, the zeal of his adversaries grew every day more and more active against him; and he was at length accused to Leo X as a heretic. As soon as he returned therefore from Heidelberg, he wrote a letter to that pope, in the most submissive terms; and sent him, at the same time, an explication of his propositions about indulgences. This letter is dated on Trinity Sunday, 1518, and was accompanied with a protestation, wherein he declared, that he did not pretend to advance or defend anything contrary to the Holy Scriptures, or to the doctrine of the fathers, received and observed by the Church of Rome, or to the canons and decretals of the popes: nevertheless, he thought he had the liberty either to approve or disapprove the opinions of St. Thomas, Bonaventure, and other schoolmen and canonists, which are not grounded upon any text.

So John Wycliffe, John Hus and Martin Luther championed the Bible over the Traditions and dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church and declared the Papacy to be the AntiChrist taught clearly by the Bible. So what book is the little angel tearing pages out of? What book did the reformers look to as "the authority" on matters of faith and doctrine, rather than decrees of the church?

John Fisher was born in 1469, enrolled at Cambridge University in 1483, ordained in 1491, and in 1502 became chaplain to Lady Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII. With her money and his ideas, they greatly altered Cambridge, restoring the teaching of Greek and Hebrew, bringing Erasmus over as a lecturer, and endowing many chairs and scholarships. In 1504 Fisher was made Chancellor of Cambridge and Bishop of Rochester. In 1527 he became chaplain to the new king, Henry VIII, and confessor to the queen, Catherine of Aragon. He stood high in the favor of Henry, who proclaimed that no other realm had any bishop as learned and devout.

Thomas More was born in 1478, studied law and was called to the Bar in 1501. He spent four years at the London Charterhouse (monastery of the Carthusian monks), considering becoming a priest or monk or friar. In 1505 he married Jane Colt, who eventually bore him three daughters and a son, but died in 1511. A few weeks after her death, More married a widow, Alice Middleton, with a son and a daughter of her own. The second marriage produced no offspring, but Alice made a good home for the six children already there, plus others whom More took in as students or as foster children. He was noted for giving his daughters far more education than most women, even in the upper classes, received. His friends included Erasmus and Colet, and other scholars who desired moderate reforms in the Church but were set against any break with the Papacy. Henry VIII, who became king in 1509, recognized More's learning and integrity, and appointed him to numerous public offices, including finally that of Lord Chancellor of England.

Trouble arose for both Fisher and More when Henry determined to seek a declaration that his marriage with Catherine was null on grounds of consanguinity. Fisher and More disagreed with him, and would not yield, either on the question of the annulment, nor later, when they were required to acknowledge the King as the final authority on ecclesiastical questions in England. Henry had them imprisoned, and finally beheaded, Fisher on 22 June 1535 and More on 6 July 1535.  Thomas More was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1935.

1543 First Protestants burned at the stake by Spanish Inquisition.

154? Lutherans raid and loot the Jewish synagogue in Berlin.

154? Luther convinces the government to ban all Jews and expel them for the entire country. Many Jews find new homes in Poland, Lithuania, and the Ukraine.

1700's to Present

John Wesley
(1703-1791)

Methodists believe there is a method to salvation

John Wesley is viewed as the father of the Methodist movement. The devotion to God and the Scriptures which formed him as a child stayed with him throughout the whole of his life, eventually qualifying him for the leadership of others in his adult life. He was raised by two parents whose emphasis upon God strongly influenced Wesley. His father was the rector in the town of Epson, while his mother was a strong spiritual leader in the home. Wesley was closest to his mother, and his views were largely shaped by the correspondence he carried with her during his adult life.

Wesley's experiences as a student at Oxford were formative to his spiritual development as well. He was dedicated to reading the Scriptures and praying twice a day, though often grew frustrated at the carnal weaknesses he continually saw patterned in his life. At this time Wesley's understanding of inner holiness was represented by the good works done by a person. For this reason he methodically recorded his daily activities in his journal and made resolutions as to how he could become more holy. While at Oxford, he and a group of other students formed what became known as the Holy Club. The young men committed their time to good works and the attempt at inward holiness. John Wesley was viewed as the leader of this group.

After his schooling at Oxford, Wesley traveled to the United States with the intention of bringing religion to the Indians. His experience fell short of his expectations when he was appointed as a preacher in Savannah rather than an evangelist to the Native Americans. It was here, however, that Wesley became acquainted with the Moravian sect, a group of believers whose emphasis was upon inner faith and assurance. This was a new concept to Wesley, who had hitherto stressed outer works as a manifestation of one's inner faith.

Upon returning to England, Wesley sought to better understand the Moravian doctrine, eventually rejecting it for its self-righteousness and lack of dependence upon Scripture. The exposure to the idea of inner faith and assurance of grace that he received with them was definitive, however, and led him toward his famous Aldersgate experience. It was at Aldersgate that Wesley recognized his need to know God with assurance, and understood that before that moment he had not been acting under God's grace. He realized he had yet to possess inner faith. He was to have other experiences similar to this in the future, but Aldersgate is most widely remembered because it was his first realization of a need for change in his theology.

As Wesley began to preach about the foremost need for faith above works, he became highly unpopular with the surrounding churches. He was refused at their doors and was forced to preach open-air sermons. These sermons attracted hundreds, sometimes thousands, of followers and began the movement that would eventually bring about the Methodist church. During his life, Wesley was opposed to separation from the Church of England. He made every attempt to remain loyal to her, even through their differing views, and concluded that if there were to be a complete separation, it would not be his fault. A separation did come about, however, when Wesley sent ministers to the colonists in America, forming a church separate from the Church of England.

"Christian Perfection" and "A Plain Account of Genuine Christianity" shows Wesley as an advocate of the individual's ability to attain perfection while on earth. Many were divided on this view as well, but Wesley maintained it as a valid perspective according to the Scriptures. Conversely, as much as he believed in the Christian's ability to become perfect, he also believed that the Christian was just as liable to fall into perdition if he was not watchful of his actions. This ideology is also outlined in the latter part of "The Struggle With the Calvinists."