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Bohemian Protestants and the Calvinist Churches
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
Extract
The name of John Hus is the symbol of the Czech Reformation. Through him the reform movement in Bohemia and Moravia was linked both with the activities of John Wyclif and with the coming of Martin Luther. The close connection between Wyclif and Hus is sufficiently known. In the polemics against an English adversary of Wyclif, John Stokes, Hus stated that he was greatly attracted by Wyclif's endeavor to bring all men back to God's law, and especially the clergy, so that they would renounce all ostentation and secular power in the world to live the Christlike life like the apostles. Martin Luther knew some Latin writings of John Hus, especially his treatise De Ecclesia, and approved of his views. In his disputation with Dr. Eck in 1519, he defended Wyclif and Hus against the attacks of his opponent, to the great satisfaction of some Czech students who were present in Leipzig and spread throughout Bohemia the news of his zeal. There is a miniature in a Czech manuscript of 1572, where one can see Wyclif striking fire, Hus lighting a candle from the spark, and Luther waving a flaming torch; it shows that the Czech Hussites were well aware of the affinity between the doctrines of Wyclif and Hus and of the influence of Hus on the first German reformer.
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- Copyright © American Society of Church History 1939
References
1 Odložilík, Otakar, Wyclif and Bohemia (Prague, 1937), 47–8.Google Scholar
2 The MSS. is preserved in the University Library in Prague.
3 Hromádka, J. L., “The Heritage of the Bohemian Reformation,” in a volume of essays, At the Crossroads of Europe (Prague, 1938), 114.Google Scholar
4 Joseph Th. Müller devoted much attention to this problem and after a very careful analysis of the contemporary sources and later historical writings came to the conclusion that it is impossible to assume that the apostolic succession really was preserved. In his work, Geschichte der böhmischen Brüder, I, 147Google Scholar, he wrote as follows: “Nach alledem kann nicht mehr davon die Rede sein, dass Mathias (i. e. Matthias of Kunvald, a priest around whom the first members of the Unity were grouped) eine im Sinne der römischen Kirche gültige Bischofsweihe erhalten und dass dabei die übrigens in jeder Hinsicht sehr fadenscheinige sogennante apostolische Succession gewahrt worden sei.”
5 A Czech description of his journey appeared in 1539; for the title page of this edition, see Müller, 's Geschichte, I, 250.Google Scholar
6 It was entitled, Rechenschaft des Glaubens, der Dienst und Ceremonien der Bruder in Behemen and Mehrern … sampt einer nützlichen Vorrhede Doct. Martin Luther.
7 The English translation of Luther's words is taken from de Schweinitz, E., The History of the Church Known as the Unitas Fratrum, 251–2.Google Scholar
8 Kralice is a small village in Moravia where the Brethren had their printing office.
9 There is no biography of Budovec; for žerotín, see my article, “Karel žerotín and the English Court,” in the Slavonic and East European Review, XV, 413–25.Google Scholar It is partly based on my biography of zerotin which appeared in Prague in 1936 with the title, Karel starší ze Žerotína (198 pages).Google Scholar
10 A. A. van Sehelven calls this whole group the “general staff” of the political Calvinism; see Bulletin of the International Committee of Historical Sciences, XXXIX, 296.Google Scholar
11 The book, Vezelii, Theodori BezaePoemata Varia … was published in Geneva in 1597.Google Scholar
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15 Ecclesiae Slavonicae … Bohema in gente potissimum radicatae … brevis historiola; the prefatory epistle has the title: “De bono unitatis et ordinis disciplinaeque ac obedientiae in ecclesia recte constituta vel constituenda ecclesiae Bohemicae ad Anglicanam Paraenesis.”
16 Ratio disciplinae ordinisque ecclesiastici in Unitate Fratrum Bohemorum. First Latin edition was published in 1633.
17 In connection with the discussions concerning the new organization of the Church of England, Jean Durel published, in 1662, A View of the Government and Public Worship of God in the Reformed Churches beyond the Seas, where attention was paid also to Bohemia.
18 It was translated by Joshua Tymarchus and printed in 1661 in London for Thomas Parkhurst.
19 The MSS. of this translation is preserved in the Library of the Archbishops of Canterbury in Lambeth (London).
20 Jablonský was in correspondence with W. Wake for many years; see Odložilík, O., “Protestant Reunipn in the Eighteenth Century (Archbishop Wake and D. E. Jablonský)” in the Slavonic and East European Review, XIII, 119–126.Google Scholar Cf. also de Sehweinitz, , op. cit., 630.Google Scholar