Petr Chelčický

Template:Short description Petr Chelčický (; c. 1390 – c. 1460) was a Czech Christian spiritual leader and author in 15th-century Bohemia, now the Czech Republic. He was one of the most influential thinkers of the Bohemian Reformation. Chelčický inspired the Unitas Fratrum, who opposed transubstantiation and monasticism, insisting on pacifism and the primacy of scripture. There are multiple parallels with the teachings of the Anabaptists and Chelčický. Czech Baptists have also expressed continuity with the Bohemian reformation by identifying with Chelčický.

His published works critiqued the immorality and violence of the contemporary church and state. He proposed a number of Bible-based improvements for human society, including nonresistance, which influenced humanitarians Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. Paradoxically, the main part of the Hussite movement rejected his teachings of nonviolence, which eventually led to much violence among the Hussite movement. Chelčický's teachings laid the foundation of the Unity of the Brethren.

Early life

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Chelčický's statue in Chelčice

Petr Chelčický is thought to have been born in southern Bohemia in about 1390, although one theory puts his birth as early as 1374. Very little is known about his personal history. Different historians have called him a serf, an independent farmer, a squire, a nobleman, a cobbler, a priest, and a Waldensian. On one occasion, Chelčický called himself a peasant, but this description is at odds with his ability to live in Prague from 1419 to 1421, his rudimentary knowledge of Latin, and the time he was able to devote to literary, political, and religious pursuits.

It is certain that he was unusually literate for a medieval man without a regular academic education. After 1421, he lived and farmed in the village of Chelčice, near Vodňany. He produced 56 known works, but the majority remain unpublished and inaccessible except in the original manuscripts. His thinking was influenced by Thomas of Štítný, John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, and the Waldensian tradition. He died around 1460.

Teachings

Chelčický's teachings included ideas later adopted by the Moravians, Anabaptists, Quakers, and Baptists. He was the first pacifist writer of the Renaissance, predating Erasmus and Menno Simons by nearly 100 years.

Scripture

Chelčický believed in a strict adherence to the principle of sola scriptura and read the Bible in the vernacular. His strict adherence to sola scriptura caused Chelčický to occasionally contradict John Wycliffe and other Hussites. He rejected the papacy and Catholic hierarchy, believing that the early church had no pope, kings, lords, inquisitions or crusaders.

Chelčický believed that purgatory is an example of the Church corrupting the New Testament by adding traditions; thus, he denied the doctrine of purgatory.

Church and state

Chelčický called the Pope and the emperor (the church and the state) "whales who have torn the net of true faith" because they established the church as the head of a secular empire. Chelčický believed that Christians should follow the law of love and so should not be compelled by state authority. He taught that the believer should not accept government office or even appeal to its authority, as for the true believer to take part in government was sinful. He argued that capital punishment and other forms of violent punishment were wrong. His positions on government are similar to the Christian anarchist principles of Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy praised Chelčický's work in his 1894 book The Kingdom of God is Within You.

The man who obeys God needs no other authority (over him).

— Template:Comma separated entries

Nonviolence and war

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Painting of Chelčický instructing others to not repay evil with evil (1918, by Alphonse Mucha, The Slav Epic)

As early as 1420, Chelčický taught that violence should not be used in religious matters. Chelčický used the parable of the wheat and the tares () to show that both the sinners and the saints should be allowed to live together until the harvest. He thought that it is wrong to kill even the sinful and that Christians should refuse military service. He argued that if the poor refused, the lords would have no one to go to war for them.

Chelčický taught that no physical power can destroy evil, and that Christians should accept persecution without retaliating. He believed that even defensive war was the worst evil and thought that soldiers were no more than murderers. He believed the example of Jesus and the Gospel was an example of peace.

Communal living

Chelčický believed that there must be complete equality in the Christian community. He said there should be no rich or poor since the Christian relinquished all property and status. He maintained that Christians could expel evil persons from their community but could not compel them to be good. He believed in equality but that the state should not force it upon society and went so far as to proffer that social inequality is a creature of the state and rises and falls with it.

According to Karl Kautsky in Communism in Central Europe in the Time of the Reformation, "The nature of the first organisation of the Bohemian Brethren is not at all clear, as the later Brothers were ashamed of their communistic origin, and endeavoured to conceal it in every possible way." Some of Chelčický's statements tend to indicate that he thought only the poor were genuine Christians.

Priesthood of the believer

Chelčický criticized the use of force in matters of faith. He taught that the Christian should strive for righteousness of their own free will but must not force others to be good and that goodness should be voluntary. He believed that the Christian must love God and one's neighbor and that is the way to convert people rather than by compulsion. He maintained that any type of compulsion is evil and that Christians should not participate in political struggles.

Sacraments

Chelčický advocated for baptism to be generally administered to those who are of later age. However, he did not completely forbid infant baptism, allowing it if the parents would assure their education in the faith. He additionally did not propose re-baptism. Chelčický did not believe that baptism by itself could save but is a part of the process of salvation which included instruction, confirmation and discipleship.

He additionally rejected transubstantiation but did not hold to memorialism, which was taught by radical Hussites.

Other teachings

Chelčický based his teaching on the Sermon on the Mount, renouncing violence, bearing arms and oaths. He also supported asceticism and believed celibacy to be a holier state than marriage.

Chelčický opposed indulgences and paying masses for the dead. Later he protested against the Utraquists making compromises with the Catholic church, seeing it as a reunion with the Antichrist.

Chelčický held that apostolic succession is not determined by laying on of hands but it is a matter of the clergy following the teaching of Christ.

Author

Chelčický is the author of approximately 50 treatises that have survived until today. All are written in Czech.

("On Spiritual Warfare"), written in 1421, was his first major work. In it, Chelčický argued that the Taborites had participated in violence through the devil's deceit and the lust for the things of the world. He also criticized the chiliasts, opposed physical warfare and noted that obligations of debts gave lenders power over debtors.

In ("On the Triple Division of Society") Chelčický criticized the nobility, the clergy and the middle class. He describes how they subjected the common people and rode them "as if they were beasts".

In ("Net of Faith"), his final and most comprehensive work written around 1440, he argues that the apostles treated people as equals, considered Christ as their only head, and that early Christians followed Jesus's instruction of loving one another - thus having no need for rulers or criminal courts. It was in this book that he argued that the Emperor and the Pope were the two great "whales" that burst the "net of faith" - a metaphor for the inclusion of pagan values and practices into the teachings of Christ. The book also includes some commentary on the Council of Basel.

Influence

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Several streets in the modern Czech Republic are named Chelčického after Chelčický. This street in Teplice has a church dedicated to Bartholomew the Apostle.

Chelčický has been called "the foremost thinker of the 15th-century Czech Hussite Reformation movement." He certainly was an influential thinker among the Bohemian brethren of his day. Beyond his own time, his influence can be seen in the Moravians (), Unity of the Brethren (), and even the Baptist Union in the Czech Republic (also known as the Unity of Brethren Baptists). Important similarities can be seen between his teachings and the Continental Anabaptists, and, to a lesser extent, the English Baptists, though no direct connections have been shown to exist. He emphasized the New Testament as the exclusive and final source to know the will of God. He held two sacraments: baptism and the Lord's Supper. He encouraged people to read and interpret the Bible for themselves.

Chelčický's work, specifically Net of Faith, influenced Leo Tolstoy and is referenced in his book The Kingdom of God Is Within You. His name appears as "Helchitsky" in many English translations (following the Russian transliteration ).

Bibliography

The following is a list of Chelčický's known works

• (These Are the Marks of Antichrist)
• (Nine Pieces of Gold)
• (Another Sermon on the Beast and Its Image)
• (How Priests Have Not Preached According to the Early Church in All Things)
• (How We Do Not Have Love for Life but Prefer to Hate)
• (Letter to Father Mikuláš)
• (Letter to Mikuláš and Martin)
• (Letter to Master Jan)
• (We Fools for Christ)
• (For Christ Did Not Send Me to Baptize but to Preach)
• (On Spiritual Warfare)
• (On the Holy Church)
• (On Love of God)
• (On the Power of the World)
• (On the Highest Bishop, the Lord Christ)
• (On Purgatory)
• (On the Truth of Purgatory, Its Certainty and Uncertainty)
• (On Humility)
• (On Recognition of Oneself)
• (On the Czech Factions)
• (On the Differentiation of the Spirits)
• (On the Seven Cardinal Sins)
• (On the Old and New Faith and on the Fellowship of the Saints)
• (On Witnessing)
• (On Conscience)
• (On the Beast and Its Image)
• (On the Body of Christ)
• (On the Body and Blood of the Lord)
• (On the Punishment of the Heart)
• (On the Triple Division of Society)
• (On Evil Priests)
• (On the Prodigal Son)
• (Markolt's Defense)
• (The Polstilla - Sunday Bible commentaries for the whole year)
• (Man Should Not Be Given the Death Penalty for Theft)
• (Reply to Bishop Mikuláš)
• (Reply to Rokycana)
• (Sermon and Instructions on the Body of Christ)
• (Sermon on the 20th Chapter of St. Matthew)
• (Sermon on the Love of God)
• (Sermon on the Foundation of Human Laws)
• (Sermon of St. Paul on the Old and New Man)
• (The Conversations of Tomáš Štítný)
• (Net of Faith)
• (Writing Against the Priests)
• (Exposition on the Lord's Supper Against the Bishop)
• (Exposition on the passage from St. John, First Chapter)
• (Exposition on Chapter 14 of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans)
• (Exposition of Matthew 22:37–39)
• (Exposition of the Lord's Prayer)
• (Exposition on the Passion of St. John)
• (Exposition on the Sermon of St. John in the Second Epistle)
• (Exposition on the Sermon of St. Paul)
• (Exposition on the Words of St. Paul in his Epistle to Timothy 1:5-8)
• (Exposition of Romans 13:1-3)
• (Instructions on the Sacraments)

See also

• Christian libertarianism
• Christian pacifism
• Nonviolence
• The Slav Epic (Painting: Petr Chelčický at Vodňany: Do not repay evil with evil)

External links

• Works by or about Petr Chelčický on the Internet Archive

• Chelčický's Nonviolence

• The Bohemian Brethren – from Karl Kautsky's Communism in Central Europe in the Time of the Reformation

• The Birth, Life, and Death of the Bohemian Revival – A historical overview of the revival that generated the Unitas Fratrum