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The Perfectionism of the Early Unit as Fratrum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Marianka S. Fousek
Marianka S. Fousek
Affiliation:
Cambridge, Mass.
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Extract

The writings of the Bohemian Brethren dating from the sixteenth century and the end of the fifteenth accuse the founding generation of their Unitas of a spirit-breaking perfectionism and an unwarranted idealism (“high thinking”) about the moral achievements, or inner “corrrection” (opraveni) available to those born anew in Christ. According to the later documents, the expectations which were placed upon the early Brethren by their spiritual leaders were “above measure and sobriety,” made them live in constant fear and anxiety, and took away from them the hope of salvation. The revolution which took place within the Unitas toward the end of the fifteenth century liberated the Brethren from the demand to carry out to the letter the injunctions of the Sermon on the Mount as spelled out in Matthew 5: 21–48, permitting them to have an active part in the political and social order of the day. It also released them from the apparently unbearable pressure to show their new birth by lives free from sin. The revolutionary official Agreement of 1495 setting aside the authority of the Brethren's older writings refers to the abiding frailty of even the greatest saints and states that the hope of salvation cannot be based on the achievement of perfection by the Christian.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , December 1961 , pp. 396 - 413
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1961

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References

1. Contrary to usual practice, we will not use the term “Unity of Brethren” for the group. The Czech word jednota is much closer to “union” than “unity” in English, since it both implies oneness and an organizational union, as does its Latin equivalent “unitas.”

2. So, e.g., Brother John Blahoslav's matter-of-fact comment on an early treatise preserved in Acta Unit atis Fratrurn I: “Scriptum hoc… contains those things which later on were corrected under Br. Procopius and others, such as the high speaking about divine correction.” Aicty Jednoty bratrslcé I, ed. Jaroslav Bidlo, Brno, 1915, p. 387.

3. “The Agreement” of 1495, reprinted in Jaroslav Goll's Chelčicky a Jednota v XV století, ed. K. Krofta, Praha, 1916, p. 210Google Scholar, and Br. Luke's “Renovation” in Goll, pp. 198–9.

4. The Brethren established their first semi-autonomous community in 1457 and completed their schism from the Roman Utraquist Communion in 1467, by establishing their own independent ministry that year.

5. Goll, loc. cit.

6. Vide, e.g., the Brethren's “First Letter to Master Rokycana,” where they explain that they could not preserve a “good conscience” and be “established in the hope of salvation” with him as their priest because he was “establishing” people who gave no evidence of genuine repentance in a “false hope” by not refusing them the sacraments. Akty I, pp. 1–3; cf. Ibid., pp. 606–7, 202.

7. (ro'-ki-tsa-na and khel'-chits-kee) Simek, Fr., “Učení Mistra Jana Rokycany,” Rozpravy Ceské akademie věd a umění, tiída III, č. 77, Praha, 1912, pp. 276, 279 and 283Google Scholar and Chelčieky's, “The Seven Sacraments,” cited in Tumy Pŕeloučského Spis o puvodu Jednoty, ed. Sokol, Praha, 1947, pp. 11–12.Google Scholar

8. “A. Writing of Br. John Klenovsky,” 1471–72, printed in Pal'mov, Ivan, Cheshskie Brat'ya v svoikh konfessiyakh, vol. I, Praha, 1940, P. 122Google Scholar; cf. Akty I, pp. 218, 23, 25–6, 323Google Scholar; II p. 20.

9. Akty I, pp. 276, 294, 243et al.Google Scholar

10. In Molnár, Amadeo, Ceskobratrskávychova prřed Komenskym, Praha, 1956, p. 49.Google Scholar

11. Akty I, p. 191Google Scholar; the story is based on the apocryphal letter of Clement to James.

12. Ibid., pp. 392–4.

13. Ibid., p. 392.

14. The very early ‘decree’ marked in the collected Dekrety (edited by A. Gindely, Praha, 1865), p. 56Google Scholar as being from the 1467 schism states that a Brother who refuses to heed a summons to present himself before the “Brethren” (not defined) with regard to an accusation raised against him is to be shunned. The meaning of the shunhing (neoboovat) is not spelled out. It seems to refer, however, to the same practice which is described as the second degree of church censure in the Agreement. A like ban fell on those Brethren who willfully continued to associate with the person under such a ban.

15. The provisions described are found in Molnár, p. 49f.

16. Akty I, p. 472.Google Scholar

17. Ibid., p. 191; cf. Ibid., pp. 87, 191, 221, 227; II pp. 4 and 221; Pal'mov, p. 145; Goll, Jaroslav, “Některé prameny k náboženskym dějinám v 15. století,” část II, in Věstník královskéčeské společnosti nauk (abbreviated as VKSN), 1895, Praha, p. 4.Google Scholar

18. Akty I, pp. 49 and 160, Pal'mov, p. 82.Google Scholar

19. Pal'mov p. 135; cf. Akty I, pp. 300 and 272, II, pp. 211–2.Google Scholar

20. In Pal'mov, p. 138.

21. Akty II, p. 138Google Scholar and VKBN, p. 4.

22. The Glatz Inquisition in 1480, at least, noted that, according to the witness of the Brethren interrogated by it, Unitas' priests heard confessions only infrequently. The report is contained in VKSN; pp. 5–6 refer to the question. The Galta report is one of the very few primary sources on the early Brethren written in a language other than Czech.

23. Which was what Jos. Th. Mueller understood to have been the case, Geschichte der Böhmischen Brüder, I, Herrnhut, 1922, p. 214.Google Scholar

24. “All who by faith and love hold to the Lord Christ are one body with him and … receiving a participation in his Spirit through which they are made holy… But although they are saints, evil remains in their body… But because we have the hope that God has called us to have a part in his grace … we have the hope that he will not count and weigh against us /this evil/ but, through the grace which has been given to us by God the Father through Jesus Christ, will deliver us and forgive us. He will not let it be to our damnation if we remain in Christ Jesus, firmly intending from the heart to walk after the flesh … For we believe that God the Father fills up all the imperfection with the fullness which is in Christ … So that he will graciously forgive, at the intercession of his dear Son, who stands before him with the sacrifice which he once offered for the perfection of all whom he sanctifies …” Pal'mov, pp. 143–4 (undated anonymous confession from before 1494).

25. It is thence that the Brethren's reserve toward penances is evidently derived. VKSN, p. 8: “Penitentiam tamen nullam vel parvam iniungunt dicentes: “vade et amplius noli. peccare.’”

26. From “Brethren In Anxiety Under King George,” 1468, Akty I, p. 614Google Scholar. Cf. Augustine's, De spiritu et littera, cap. V, Opera Omnia, Toinus X, Pars prior, (Migne, J. P., Patrotogiae cursas completus, series latina), Paris, 1841.Google Scholar

27. Akty I, pp. 440–62Google Scholar; the date of the treatise is not established. Bidlo judges it to be most probably from 1474. Ibid., p. 440, n. 1.

28. In Goll's, Chelčicky a Jednota, pp. 198–200.Google Scholar

29. Akty I, pp. 446–7.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., p. 444.

31. Ibid., p. 451.

32. Ibid., p. 456. The writing cites Hebrews 10: 26–7; 6: 4–6 and 10: 29 for its authority.

33. Without reading modern psychological categories into their theology, our term “personality” perhaps, nevertheless, succeeds in capturing something of what the Brethren meant when they spoke of the change from the “old” to the “new man.”

34. Akty I, p. 41.Google Scholar

35. The past of these verbs is expressed in its perfective aspect; this connotes in a Slavic language an action which has occurred at a given time and is now completed, somewhat like the Greek aorist.

36. “The Brethren in Anxiety,” Akty I, p. 613.Google Scholar

37. Akty I, pp. 21 and 613–4Google Scholar, citing I John 5: 3–5; cf. pp. 85, 102, 313 and 298. These references point us to five different major treatises of the Brethren from the years 1468–71: “The Fourth Letter to Master Rokycana,” “Brethren In Anxiety,” “Concerning Good and Wicked Priests,” “How Men Are to Conduct Themselves Toward the Roman Church” and, finally, “Concerning the Holy Church.” The reference to the last should be quoted to show its lack of sophistication: “It is obvious that where faith and love are present…man has the power to keep the commandments of God, for they make it easij and sweet (underlining by the writer of the article) for him to love God above all things and his neighbor as himself. Thus man mightily triumphs over this vain world, so that he does not love it nor the things which are in it.”

38. “The Fourth Letter to R.” states that it belongs to the very substance of salvation for the messengers of God to live without mortal sin. Akty I, p. 53. Ia another context, our letter relates, and that as a simple fact, that Unitas' bishop Matthias had never become guilty of a mortal sin. Ibid., pp. 31 and 53.

39. “Fourth Letter,” Akty I, p. 21Google Scholar, and “How Men Are To Conduet Themselves Toward…,” Ibid., pp. 313, 336–7 and 385. These are the passages which Br. John Blahoslav referred to as “high-speaking,” Ibid., p. 387; cf. also “Treatise Concerning the Holy Church,” Ibid., p. 229.

40. Ibid., pp. 458 and 445.

41. Ibid., p. 458. The sins are forgiven when the faithful are contrite and acknowledge themselves guilty in the presence of Christ and his “ambassadors,” keep themselves from cvil and are diligent in good deeds.

42. Ibid., pp. 458–60.

43. Chelčieky, Peter, Menši spisy, ed., Karásek, , Praha, 1892, pp. 14; 94–7; 120; 37; 48; 57–8; 89.Google Scholar

44. Ibid., p. 96.

45. Akty I, pp. 456–8.Google Scholar

46. Ibid., p. 473.

47. Ibid., pp. 391–2, from where also the following will be drawn.

48. The Brethren's text of this Matthean passage is: “If your brother sins (not “sins against you”), correct him (discipline or admonish —potresci).”

49. Cf. the “Brethren In Anxiety,” to which we referred above as be longing to the “perfectionistie” writings, which explains that God, taking into consideration the Christians' remaining in the “flesh” while they are on earth, does not weigh against the faithful “ordinary sins,” sins which occur in spite of their will and intention (underlined by us). Akly I, p. 617.Google Scholar

50. The Old and New Testament in Czech are called the Old and New Law— Zákon.

51. Goll, pp. 209–10.

52. Ibid., p. 199.

53. Ibid., p. 200f.

54. What follows is a paraphrase of Br. Luke's report in Goll, pp. 200–1.

55. Goll, p. 201.

56. Goll, p. 169; Akty II, Preface p. 68Google Scholar and text p. 189n.; Mueller, p. 247.

57. The letter is preserved in Acts Unitatis Fratrum V. Procopius explains in it that it is impossible to do justice to God's commandments, because they are so many and so complex. However, God will accept our “good will” instead. Goll, p. 169n.

58. Vide, e.g., Br. John Krasonicky's account of the struggle reprinted in Molnár, p. 88.

59. Goll, p. 201.

60. Akty II, pp. 180–197.Google Scholar

61. Ibid., Preface p. 68n and text p. 189n.

62. The “Writing” is printed in Pal'mov, as document No. 5. The text in question is on pp. 117–8 and 120–1.

63. The “Reply” omits two sections from the text on which it draws, the seetioas not dealing with the principle of “good will” which the “Reply” is here attempting to communicate. Its first omission cuts out the following sentence from Kienovaky's text: “Therefore, to stand by the power of faith, to govern oneself by the wisdom of God, and to have the love of theh. Spirit in one's heart is necessary to salvation, and he who does not have apartinitcannotbesaved.” (Pal'mov, p. 117, lines 44–46). The writers of the “Reply” must have considered this sentence as undermining the very principle which the treatise was trying to expose. The next omission begins with line 18 of p. 118 In Pal'mov; the section contains lengthy quotations from the “doctors” — Richard, Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine and Bernard —showing the importance of the will, and also a brief exeursus on the sacraments and the offlaiaiz of the Church. The “Reply” then resumes its quotation of Klenovaky's text, beginning with line 27 of p. 120 in Pal'mov.

64. The passages are from Pal'mov, p. 117 and Akty II, p. 188Google Scholar, respectively. The underlining in our quotation indicates the forms affected by the change from the singular to the plural.

65. Mueller, pp. 234–6. Mueller sees this expressed both in the “Writing” and in the 1471–2 confession “In the Name of Our Lord” (Pal'mov, pp. 91–113), which ho attributes to Klenovsky on the basis of its many affinities with the “Writing.” The confession is sufficiently ambiguous in its treatment of the “corrected will” (Pal'mov, pp. 94–95) to lend itself to either interpretation. Goll saw in it, however, an unconscious anticipation of the principle which finally won out in the 1490's. He. in contrast to Mueller, read the “Writing” also in this light (p. 233). Unfortunately, Gall did not deal with the “Reply” and thus did not tackle the problem of the identity of the good-will passages in the “Writing” and the “Reply.” Nor did he remark on the striking closeness In thought and in language between the solution describcd in Luke's “Renovation” and our passage in the “Writing.”

66. The past participle here is in its perfective aspect, connoting a completed action.

67. Pal'mov, pp. 117–8.

68. The verb “correct” is here in its imperfective aspect, connoting a prolonged process and repetition: it does not envisage the end of the process.

69. Pal'mov, pp. 120–1; it is this second passage that shows such a striking similarity, in thought and in language, to the solution of the unnamed “Brother” in Luke's history. Mueller seems to have read the previous passage in isolation from this latter one and hence could of course see in it only Br. Gregory's spirit. Why he passed over the latter remains unexplainable.

70. Unfortunately, we know very little about him from the period preceding Unitas' inner difficulties. By 1490 we see him as the official spokesman of Unitas' governing Council, which was headed by Br. Matthias. (Br. John Krasonicky's “Concerning the Learned,” in Molnár, p. 89.)

71. Goll shows him as the leader of the revolutionary party. He was apparently not interested in attaining overt power; he worked through others. On the role played by Klenovsky, see Goll, pp. 177 and 232–4. K. managed to be absent from important meetings at which his presence was not considered by him advantageous to his cause. Vide Goll, pp. 203, 177 and 234. Luke's “Renovation” shows him as a strategist who knew how to attain the revolutionary aims of his party without appearing to be imposing his will on anyone. Goll, p. 203; cf. Krasonicky, in Molnár, pp. 89–90.

72. We have an interesting witness of Unitas' bishop Matthias and of the leaders of the conservative wing on how great his influence was over the weak Br. Matthias himself. The following is from the “Report of the Minor Party” in Acta IV (printed in Goll, p. 234)Google Scholar: “Brother Matthias, you… wrote that you hare often heard them (the leaders of the innovating party) mock the first teaching and first interpretation (i.e., the official teaching under Br. Gregory) … and that you have often opposed the new agreement (the 1495 Agreement of Rychnor, apparently). But you have been hedged around by Klenovsky (underlining by us) as if by a wall, and you have been pushed in as if by stones by much speaking and arguing …Br. Matthias, as you yourself have written…”

73. The Agreement of 1495 itself does not, interestingly enough, allude to the principle. But vide, e.g., the “decree” from 1498 commenting on the teachings of Br. Gregory and explaining to what extent they still may be considered useful. Dekrety Jednoty bratrské, ed. Gindely, p. 86; Cf. ibid., pp. 79–80.

74. The Unitas was formally founded in 1467 and Klenovsky's “Writing” dates from 1471–2.

75. Jaroslav Goll's recognition that the thought in K.'s “Writing” anticipated the thought which was to win out in the Unitas at the end of the century seems to be the one exception. Klenovsky and his readers might have originally not even been aware of the “Writing's” not conforming to an “official teaching” on the part of the Unitas. He certainly did not compose it to serve as a controversial piece of material among the Brethren.

76. The “Reply,” Akty II, p. 187.Google Scholar