Iohannes Hus: State succincti

Magistri Iohannis Hus Opera omnia

Lucie Mazalová (critical edition)

Zuzana Čermáková Lukšová (digital edition)

Masaryk university, Faculty of Arts, 2025.

Ratio edendi

Synodal sermon on the Bible verse from the Epistle to the Ephesians (Eph 6, 14) − State succincti lumbos vestros − was delivered by Jan Hus in Prague on 18 October 1407. It was his second synodal sermon (cf. Diliges Dominum Deum from 1405) and used it to launch a sharp critique of the Church, especially its schism, which was according to him the clearest manifestation of the Antichrist's presence in the world. Many critical passages were inspired especially by John Wyclif's sermon Confortamini in Domino which is based also on Ephesians 6, and as well as by Sermones super Cantica Canticorum composed by Bernard of Clairvaux. Many ideas were later repeated by Hus also in his other works – Tractatus de ecclesia, Expositio Decalogi, Contra octo doctores or can be found in pseudo-Hus's Dicta de tempore or Sermones in Capella Bethlehem.

The text of State succincti has been preserved in 25 manuscripts, three of which were selected for this digital edition. For the base text, we have used the manuscript preserved in the National Library of the Czech Republic in Prague, under the shelfmark VIII F 2, fols. 37r−51r (siglum A). In the apparatus, variant readings from two additional manuscripts are recorded – one held in the Jegellonian Library in Kraków, under the shelfmark 1628, fols. 24rb−33va (siglum B), and the other in the archive of The Metropolitan Chapter of St. Vitus in Prague, under the signature N 7, fols. 56v−65r (siglum C). All three manuscripts date from the mid-15th century.

The main text of the edition follows the wording and graphical features found in manuscript A. Graphical variants and scribal errors are not included in the apparatus. Manuscripts B and C differ considerably from manuscript A and appear to be related, as they agree in most of their variant readings (nearly three hundred various readings or omissions). In addition, manuscript B includes more than one hundred additional separate readings, and manuscript C contains more than twice as many.

The sermon has so far been published only uncritically – in the old print Historia et monumenta (vol. II) from 1558 edited by Flacius Illyricus (in 1715 in reissued version).

Witnesses in the edition

• A: National Library of the Czech Republic, VIII F 2. Digital version (Manuscriptorium)
• B: Kraków, Jagellonian Library, 1628.
• C: Prague, Library of the Prague Metropolitan Chapter, N 7.

List of all manuscripts

Bibliography

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