Here’s yet another Latin phrase in our Monthly Latin series. This could easily have an exclamation mark attached to it, and physically speaking both hands on one’s cheeks for extra effect, for it carries a lot of feeling. Have you heard of:

O Sancta Simplicitas

meaning Oh, Holy Simplicity! The legend is that these were the last words spoken by the Czech theologian Jan Hus as he was being burned at stake during the general council of the Roman Catholic Church in Constance in the year 1415. And he would have uttered them when he saw an old farmer woman approaching the stake in order to throw some brushwood on it so it would better catch fire.

Jan Hus' ashes were later thrown into the river Rhine so as to prevent the veneration of his remains for he had a lot of followers in Bohemia and elsewhere.

Today the phrase - which could also be translated Holy innocence - is often used ironically, in reference to someone being naïve. For little did that woman probably know or even wanted to know why the man was being burned. All she saw was a fire not burning properly, and she knew for sure how to fix that.