The Influence of John Wycliffe on the Antichrist Rhetoric of Jan Hus

Abstract

In this study I describe the influence of Wycliffe’s works on the formation of Jan Hus’s Antichrist rhetoric. This paper introduces a new research project that explores how and under what circumstances Hus received, combined, or omitted Wycliffe’s statements about the Antichrist in works of various genres and written or delivered in different years. I focus on the influence of Wycliffe’s rhetoric on Hus’s Latin «sermons», primarily concentrating on the university sermon Abiciamus opera tenebrarum (1404) and two synodal sermons, Diliges Dominum Deum (1405) and State succincti (1407). I also consider other sermons that may be associated with Hus’s university activities, such as the works collectively known as Sermones de oboedientia (1410). This study also anticipates two topics that appear in Hus’s works in different genres, particularly his later works: Hus’s reception of Bernard of Clairvaux’s rhetoric by way of John Wycliffe and the shift in Hus’s reception of Wycliffe’s criticism of the temporal power of the clergy. This study centres not only on the presence of the term Antichristus and its derivatives but also on passages that deal with this topic although they do not contain this exact term and on the wider context.

Keywords: Antichrist, rhetoric, Jan Hus, John Wycliffe, medieval sermon, preaching, criticism, Bohemian Reformation