A brilliant idea is an excellent thing. A man to work it out is still
better. At the very time when Peter's followers were marshalling their
forces, John Rockycana,[5] Archbishop-elect of Prague (since 1448), was
making a mighty stir in that drunken city. What Peter had done with his
pen, Rockycana was doing with his tongue. He preached Peter's doctrines
in the great Thein Church; he corresponded with him on the burning
topics of the day; he went to see him at his estate; he recommended his
works to his hearers; and week by week, in fiery language, he denounced
the Church of Rome as Babylon, and the Pope as Antichrist himself. His
style was vivid and picturesque, his language cutting and clear. One day
he compared the Church of Rome to a burned and ruined city, wherein the
beasts of the forests made their lairs; and, again, he compared her to
a storm-tossed ship, which sank beneath the howling waves because the
sailors were fighting each other. "It is better," he said, "to tie a dog
to a pulpit than allow a priest to defile it. It is better, oh, women!
for your sons to be hangmen than to be priests; for the hangman only
kills the body, while the priest kills the soul. Look there," he
suddenly exclaimed one Sunday, pointing to a picture of St. Peter on the
wall, "there is as much difference between the priests of to-day and the
twelve apostles as there is between that old painting and the living St.
Peter in heaven.[6] For the priests have put the devil into the sacraments
themselves, and are leading you straight to the fires of Hell."
If an eloquent speaker attacks the clergy, he is sure to draw a crowd.
No wonder the Thein Church was crammed. No wonder the people listened
with delight as he backed up his hot attack with texts from the prophet
Jeremiah. No wonder they cried in their simple zeal: "Behold, a second
John Hus has arisen."
But John Rockycana was no second John Hus. For all his fire in the
pulpit, he was only a craven at heart. "If a true Christian," said he
to a friend, "were to turn up now in Prague, he would be gaped at like
a stag with golden horns." But he was not a stag with golden horns
himself. As he thundered against the Church of Rome, he was seeking,
not the Kingdom of God, but his own fame and glory. His followers soon
discovered his weakness. Among those who thronged to hear his sermons
were certain quiet men of action, who were not content to paw the ground
for ever. They were followers of Peter of Chelcic; they passed
his pamphlets in secret from hand to hand; they took down notes of
Rockycana's sermons; and now they resolved to practise what they heard.
If Peter had taught them nothing else, he had at least convinced them
all that the first duty of Christian men was to quit the Church of Rome.
Again and again they appealed to Rockycana to be their head, to act
up to his words, and to lead them out to the promised land. The great
orator hemmed and hawed, put them off with excuses, and told them, after
the manner of cowards, that they were too hasty and reckless. "I know
you are right," said he, "but if I joined your ranks I should be reviled
on every hand."[7] But these listeners were not to be cowed. The more
they studied Peter's writings, the more they lost faith in Rockycana.
As Rockycana refused to lead them, they left his church in a body, and
found a braver leader among themselves. His name was Gregory; he was
known as Gregory the Patriarch; and in due time, as we shall see, he
became the founder of the Church of the Brethren. He was already a
middle-aged man. He was the son of a Bohemian knight, and was nephew
to Rockycana himself. He had spent his youth in the Slaven cloister at
Prague as a bare-footed monk, had found the cloister not so moral as he
had expected, had left it in disgust, and was now well known in Bohemia
as a man of sterling character, pious and sensible, humble and strict,
active and spirited, a good writer and a good speaker. He was a personal
friend of Peter, had studied his works with care, and is said to have
been particularly fond of a little essay entitled "The Image of the
Beast," which he had borrowed from a blacksmith in Wachovia. As time
went on he lost patience with Rockycana, came into touch with the little
societies at Wilenow and Divischau, visited Peter on his estate, and
gradually formed the plan of founding an independent society, and thus
doing himself what Rockycana was afraid to do. As soldiers desert a
cowardly general and rally round the standard of a brave one, so these
listeners in the old Thein Church fell away from halting Rockycana, and
rallied round Gregory the Patriarch. From all parts of Bohemia, from all
ranks of society, from all whom Peter's writings had touched, from all
who were disgusted with the Church of Rome, and who wished to see the
True Church of the Apostles bloom in purity and beauty again, from
all especially who desired the ministration of priests of moral
character--from all these was his little band recruited. How it all
happened we know not; but slowly the numbers swelled. At last the
terrible question arose: How and where must they live? The question
was one of life and death. Not always could they worship in secret; not
always be scattered in little groups. It was time, they said, to close
their ranks and form an army that should last. "After us," Rockycana had
said in a sermon, "shall a people come well-pleasing unto God and right
healthy for men; they shall follow the Scriptures, and the example of
Christ and the footsteps of the Apostles." And these stern men felt
called to the holy task.
In the year 1457, Uladislaus Postumus, King of Bohemia, died, and George
Podiebrad reigned in his stead; and about the same time it came to the
ears of Gregory the Patriarch that in the barony of Senftenberg, on the
north-east border of Bohemia, there lay a village that would serve as
a home for him and his trusty followers. And the village was called
Kunwald, and the old castle hard by was called Lititz. The village
was almost deserted, and only a few simple folk, of the same mind as
Gregory, lived there now. What better refuge could be found? Gregory
the Patriarch laid the scheme before his uncle Rockycana; Rockycana, who
sympathized with their views and wished to help them, brought the matter
before King George; the King, who owned the estate, gave his gracious
permission; and Gregory and his faithful friends wended their way to
Kunwald, and there began to form the first settlement of the Church of
the Brethren. And now many others from far and wide came to make Kunwald
their home. Some came from the Thein Church in Prague, some across the
Glatz Hills from Moravia, some from Wilenow, Divischau and Chelcic, some
from the Utraquist Church at Königgratz,[8] some, clothed and in their
right minds, from those queer folk, the Adamites, and some from little
Waldensian groups that lay dotted here and there about the land. There
were citizens from Prague and other cities. There were bachelors and
masters from the great University. There were peasants and nobles,
learned and simple, rich and poor, with their wives and children; and
thus did many, who longed to be pure and follow the Master and Him
alone, find a Bethany of Peace in the smiling little valley of Kunwald.
Here, then, in the valley of Kunwald, did these pioneers lay the
foundation stones of the Moravian Church {1457 or 1458.}.[9] They were
all of one heart and one mind. They honoured Christ alone as King;
they confessed His laws alone as binding. They were not driven from the
Church of Rome; they left of their own free will. They were men of deep
religious experience. As they mustered their forces in that quiet dale,
they knew that they were parting company from Church and State alike.
They had sought the guidance of God in prayer, and declared that their
prayers were answered. They had met to seek the truth of God, not from
priests, but from God Himself. "As we knew not where to turn," they
wrote to Rockycana, "we turned in prayer to God Himself, and besought
Him to reveal to us His gracious will in all things. We wanted to walk
in His ways; we wanted instruction in His wisdom; and in His mercy He
answered our prayers." They would rather, they said, spend weeks in gaol
than take the oath as councillors. They built cottages, tilled the land,
opened workshops, and passed their time in peace and quietness. For
a law and a testimony they had the Bible and the writings of Peter of
Chelcic. In Michael Bradacius, a Utraquist priest, they found a faithful
pastor. They made their own laws and appointed a body of twenty-eight
elders to enforce them. They divided themselves into three classes, the
Beginners, the Learners and the Perfect;[10] and the Perfect gave up their
private property for the good of the common cause. They had overseers to
care for the poor. They had priests to administer the sacraments, They
had godly laymen to teach the Scriptures. They had visitors to see to
the purity of family life. They were shut off from the madding crowd by
a narrow gorge, with the Glatz Mountains towering on the one side and
the hoary old castle of Lititz, a few miles off, on the other; and there
in that fruitful valley, where orchards smiled and gardens bloomed,
and neat little cottages peeped out from the woodland, they plied their
trades and read their Bibles, and kept themselves pure and unspotted
from the world under the eye of God Almighty.[11]
But it was not long before these Brethren had to show of what metal they
were made. With each other they were at peace, but in Bohemia the sea
still rolled from the storm. It is curious how people reasoned in those
days. As the Brethren used bread instead of wafer at the Holy Communion,
a rumour reached the ears of the King that they were dangerous
conspirators, and held secret meetings of a mysterious and unholy
nature. And King George held himself an orthodox King, and had sworn to
allow no heretics in his kingdom. As soon therefore, as he heard that
Gregory the Patriarch had come on a visit to Prague, and was actually
holding a meeting of University students in the New Town, he came down
upon them like a wolf on the fold, and gave orders to arrest them on the
spot. He was sure they were hatching a villainous plot of some kind. In
vain some friends sent warning to the students. They resolved, with a
few exceptions, to await their fate and stand to their guns. "Come what
may," said they, in their fiery zeal, "let the rack be our breakfast
and the funeral pile our dinner!" The door of the room flew open. The
magistrate and his bailiffs appeared. "All," said the magistrate, as
he stood at the threshold, "who wish to live godly in Christ Jesus must
suffer persecution. Follow me to prison." They followed him, and were at
once stretched upon the rack. As soon as the students felt the pain of
torture their courage melted like April snow. After they had tasted the
breakfast they had no appetite for the dinner. They went in a body to
the Thein Church, mounted the pulpit one by one, pleaded guilty to the
charges brought against them, and confessed, before an admiring crowd,
their full belief in all the dogmas of the Holy Church of Rome. But for
Gregory the Patriarch, who was now growing old, the pain was too severe.
His wrists cracked; he swooned, and was thought to be dead, and in his
swoon he dreamed a dream which seemed to him like the dreams of the
prophets of old. He saw, in a lovely meadow, a tree laden with fruit;
the fruit was being plucked by birds; the flights of the birds were
guided by a youth of heavenly beauty, and the tree was guarded by three
men whose faces he seemed to know. What meant that dream to Gregory and
his Brethren? It was a vision of the good time coming. The tree was the
Church of the Brethren. The fruit was her Bible teaching. The birds were
her ministers and helpers. The youth of radiant beauty was the Divine
Master Himself. And the three men who stood on guard were the three men
who were afterwards chosen as the first three Elders of the Brethren's
Church.
While Gregory lay in his swoon, his old teacher, his uncle, his sometime
friend, John Rockycana, hearing that he was dying, came to see him.
His conscience was stricken, his heart bled, and, wringing his hands in
agony, he moaned: "Oh, my Gregory, my Gregory, would I were where thou
art." When Gregory recovered, Rockycana pleaded for him, and the King
allowed the good old Patriarch to return in peace to Kunwald.
Meanwhile, the first persecution of the Brethren had begun in deadly
earnest {1461.}. King George Podiebrad was furious. He issued an order
that all his subjects were to join either the Utraquist or the Roman
Catholic Church. He issued another order that all priests who conducted
the Communion in the blasphemous manner of the Brethren should forthwith
be put to death. The priest, old Michael, was cast into a dungeon; four
leading Brethren were burned alive; the peaceful home in Kunwald was
broken; and the Brethren fled to the woods and mountains. For two full
years they lived the life of hunted deer in the forest. As they durst
not light a fire by day, they cooked their meals by night; and then,
while the enemy dreamed and slept, they read their Bibles by the
watch-fires' glare, and prayed till the blood was dripping from their
knees. If provisions ran short, they formed a procession, and marched in
single file to the nearest village; and when the snow lay on the ground
they trailed behind them a pine-tree branch, so that folk would think a
wild beast had been prowling around. We can see them gathering in those
Bohemian glades. As the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky, and
the night wind kissed the pine trees, they read to each other the golden
promise that where two or three were gathered together in His name He
would be in the midst of them;[12] and rejoiced that they, the chosen of
God, had been called to suffer for the truth and the Church that was yet
to be.
In vain they appealed to Rockycana; he had done with them for ever.
"Thou art of the world," they wrote, "and wilt perish with the world."
They were said to have made a covenant with the devil, and were commonly
dubbed "Pitmen" because they lived in pits and caves. Yet not for a
moment did they lose hope. At the very time when the king in his
folly thought they were crushed beneath his foot, they were in reality
increasing in numbers every day. As their watch-fires shone in the
darkness of the forests, so their pure lives shone among a darkened
people. No weapon did they use except the pen. They never retaliated,
never rebelled, never took up arms in their own defence, never even
appealed to the arm of justice. When smitten on one cheek, they turned
the other; and from ill-report they went to good report, till the King
for very shame had to let them be. Well aware was he that brutal force
could never stamp out spiritual life. "I advise you," said a
certain Bishop, "to shed no more blood. Martyrdom is somewhat like a
half-roasted joint of meat, apt to breed maggots."
And now the time drew near for Gregory's dream to come true. When the
Brethren settled in the valley of Kunwald they had only done half their
work. They had quitted the "benighted" Church of Rome; they had not
yet put a better Church in her place. They had settled on a Utraquist
estate; they were under the protection of a Utraquist King;
they attended services conducted by Utraquist priests. But this
black-and-white policy could not last for ever. If they wished to be
godly men themselves, they must have godly men in the pulpits. What
right had they, the chosen of God (as they called themselves) to listen
to sermons from men in league with the State? What right had they
to take the Holy Bread and Wine from the tainted hands of Utraquist
priests? What right had they to confess their sins to men with the brand
of Rome upon their foreheads? If they were to have any priests at all,
those priests, like Caesar's wife, must be above suspicion. They must be
pastors after God's own heart, who should feed the people with knowledge
and understanding (Jer. iii. 15). They must be clear of any connection
with the State. They must be descended from the twelve Apostles. They
must be innocent of the crime of simony. They must work with their hands
for their living, and be willing to spend their money on the poor. But
where could such clean vessels of the Lord be found? For a while
the Brethren were almost in despair; for a while they were even half
inclined to do without priests at all. In vain they searched the country
round; in vain they inquired about priests in foreign lands. When they
asked about the pure Nestorian Church supposed to exist in India, they
received the answer that that Church was now as corrupt as the Romish.
When they asked about the Greek Church in Russia, they received the
answer that the Russian Bishops were willing to consecrate any man, good
or bad, so long as he paid the fees. The question was pressing. If they
did without good priests much longer, they would lose their standing in
the country. "You must," said Brother Martin Lupac, a Utraquist priest,
who had joined their ranks, "you must establish a proper order of
priests from among yourselves. If you don't, the whole cause will be
ruined. To do without priests is no sin against God; but it is a sin
against your fellow-men." As they pondered on the fateful question, the
very light of Heaven itself seemed to flash upon their souls. It was
they who possessed the unity of the spirit; and therefore it was they
who were called to renew the Church of the Apostles. They had now become
a powerful body; they were founding settlements all over the land; they
stood, they said, for the truth as it was in Jesus; they had all one
faith, one hope, one aim, one sense of the Spirit leading them onward;
and they perceived that if they were to weather the gale in those stormy
times they must cut the chains that bound them to Rome, and fly their
own colours in the breeze.
And so, in 1467, about ten years after the foundation of Kunwald, there
met at Lhota a Synod of the Brethren to settle the momentous question
{1467.}, "Is it God's will that we separate entirely from the power
of the Papacy, and hence from its priesthood? Is it God's will that we
institute, according to the model of the Primitive Church, a ministerial
order of our own?" For weeks they had prayed and fasted day and night.
About sixty Brethren arrived. The Synod was held in a tanner's cottage,
under a cedar tree; and the guiding spirit Gregory the Patriarch, for
his dream was haunting him still. The cottage has long since gone; but
the tree is living yet.
The fateful day arrived. As the morning broke, those sixty men were
all on their knees in prayer. If that prayer had been omitted the whole
proceedings would have been invalid. As the Master, said they, had
prayed on the Mount before he chose His twelve disciples, so they must
spend the night in prayer before they chose the elders of the Church.
And strange, indeed, their manner of choosing was. First the Synod
nominated by ballot nine men of blameless life, from whom were to be
chosen, should God so will, the first Pastors of the New Church. Next
twelve slips of paper were folded and put into a vase. Of these slips
nine were blank, and three were marked "Jest," the Bohemian for "is."
Then a boy named Procop entered the room, drew out nine slips, and
handed them round to the nine nominated Brethren.
There was a hush, a deep hush, in that humble room. All waited for God
to speak. The fate of the infant Church seemed to hang in the balance.
For the moment the whole great issue at stake depended on the three
papers left in the vase. It had been agreed that the three Brethren who
received the three inscribed papers should be ordained to the ministry.
The situation was curious. As the Brethren rose from their knees that
morning they were all as sure as men could be that God desired them to
have Pastors of their own; and yet they deliberately ran the risk that
the lot might decide against them.[13] What slips were those now lying in
the vase? Perhaps the three inscribed ones. But it turned out otherwise.
All three were drawn, and Matthias of Kunwald, Thomas of Prelouic, and
Elias of Chrenouic, are known to history as the first three ministers of
the Brethren's Church. And then Gregory the Patriarch stepped forward,
and announced with trembling voice that these three men were the very
three that he had seen in his trance in the torture-chamber at Prague.
Not a man in the room was surprised; not a man doubted that here again
their prayers had been plainly answered. Together the members of the
Synod arose and saluted the chosen three. Together, next day, they sang
in a hymn written for the occasion:--
We needed faithful men, and He
Granted us such. Most earnestly,
We Pray, Lord, let Thy gifts descend,
That blessing may Thy work attend.[14]
But the battle was not won even yet. If these three good men, now chosen
by Christ, were to be acknowledged as priests in Bohemia, they must
be ordained in the orthodox way by a Bishop of pure descent from the
Apostles. For this purpose they applied to Stephen, a Bishop of the
Waldenses. He was just the man they needed. He was a man of noble
character. He was a man whose word could be trusted. He had often given
them information about the Waldensian line of Bishops. He had told them
how that line ran back to the days of the early Church. He had told them
how the Waldensian Bishops had kept the ancient faith unsullied, and had
never broken the law of Christ by uniting with the wicked State. To
that line of Bishops he himself belonged. He had no connection with the
Church of Rome, and no connection with the State. What purer orders,
thought the Brethren, could they desire? They believed his statements;
they trusted his honour; they admired his personal character; and now
they sent old Michael Bradacius to see him in South Moravia and to lay
their case before him. The old Bishop shed tears of joy. "He laid his
hand on my head," says Michael, "and consecrated me a Bishop." Forthwith
the new Bishop returned to Lhota, ordained the chosen three as Priests,
and consecrated Matthias of Kunwald a Bishop. And thus arose those
Episcopal Orders which have been maintained in the Church of the
Brethren down to the present day.
The goal was reached; the Church was founded; the work of Gregory was
done. For twenty years he had taught his Brethren to study the mind
of Christ in the Scriptures and to seek the guidance of God in united
prayer, and now he saw them joined as one to face the rising storm.
"Henceforth," he wrote gladly to King George Podiebrad, "we have done
with the Church of Rome." As he saw the evening of life draw near, he
urged his Brethren more and more to hold fast the teaching of Peter of
Chelcic, and to regulate their daily conduct by the law of Christ; and
by that law of Christ he probably meant the "Six Commandments" of
the Sermon on the Mount.[15] He took these Commandments literally,
and enforced them with a rod of iron. No Brother could be a judge or
magistrate or councillor. No Brother could take an oath or keep an inn,
or trade beyond the barest needs of life. No noble, unless he laid
down his rank, could become a Brother at all. No peasant could render
military service or act as a bailiff on a farm. No Brother could ever
divorce his wife or take an action at law. As long as Gregory remained
in their midst, the Brethren held true to him as their leader. He had
not, says Gindely, a single trace of personal ambition in his nature;
and, though he might have become a Bishop, he remained a layman to the
end. Full of years he died, and his bones repose in a cleft where tufts
of forget-me-not grow, at Brandeis-on-the-Adler, hard by the Moravian
frontier {Sept.13th, 1473.}.