Soon after the publication of my book in German, I received a letter from a professor of the Prague University, which informed me of the existence of a still unpublished work by the Bohemian Chelčický, of the fifteenth century, by the name of The Net of Faith. In this work, as the professor wrote me, Chelčický about four centuries ago expressed the same view in regard to the true and the false Christianity, which I had expressed in my work, My Religion. The professor wrote to me that Chelčický’s work was for the first time to be published in Bohemian in the periodical of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. As I was unable to procure the work itself, I tried to become acquainted with what was known of Chelčický, and such information I got from a German book sent me by the same Prague professor, and from Pýpin’s History of Bohemian Literature. This is what Pýpin says:
“ ‘The Net of Faith’ is that teaching of Christ which is to draw man out from the dark depths of the sea of life and its untruths. True faith consists in believing in God’s words; but now there has come a time when men consider the true faith to be heresy, and so reason must show wherein the true faith consists, if one does not know it. Darkness has concealed it from men, and they do not know Christ’s true law.
“To explain this law, Chelčický points out the original structure of Christian society, which, he says, is now regarded as rank heresy by the Roman Church.
“This primitive church was his own ideal of a social structure, based on equality, freedom, and brotherhood. Christianity, according to Chelčický, still treasures these principles, and all that is necessary is, that society should return to its pure teaching, and then any other order, in which kings and popes are needed, would seem superfluous: in everything the law of love alone is sufficient.
“Historically Chelčický refers the fall of Christianity to the times of Constantine the Great, whom Pope Sylvester introduced into Christianity with all the pagan customs and life. Constantine, in his turn, invested the Pope with worldly wealth and power. Since then both powers have been aiding one another and have striven after external glory. Doctors and masters and the clergy have begun to care only for the subjugation of the whole world to their dominion, have armed men against one another for the purpose of murdering and plundering, and have completely destroyed Christianity in faith and in life. Chelčický absolutely denies the right to wage war and administer capital punishment; every warrior and even ‘knight’ is only an oppressor, malefactor, and murderer.”
The same, except for some biographical details and excerpts from Chelčický’s correspondence, is said in the German book.
Having thus learned the essence of Chelčický’s teaching, I with much greater impatience waited for the appearance of The Net of Faith in the journal of the Academy. But a year, two, three years passed, and the book did not appear. Only in 1888 I learned that the printing of the book, which had been begun, had come to a stop. I got the proof-sheets of as much as had been printed, and I read the book. The book is in every respect remarkable.
The contents are quite correctly rendered by Pýpin. Chelčický’s fundamental idea is this, that Christianity, having united with the power in the time of Constantine and having continued to develop under these conditions, has become absolutely corrupt and has ceased to be Christianity. The title “The Net of Faith,” was given by Chelčický to his work, because, taking for his motto the verse of the Gospel about calling the disciples to become fishers of men, Chelčický, continuing this comparison, says, “Christ by means of His disciples caught in His net of faith the whole world, but the larger fish, tearing the net, jumped out of it, and through the holes, which these larger fish had made, all the others went away, and the net was left almost empty.”
The large fish that broke through the net are the rulers, emperors, popes, kings, who, in not renouncing their power, did not accept Christianity, but its semblance only.
Chelčický taught what has been taught until the present by the Mennonites and Quakers, and what in former years was taught by the Bogomils, Paulicians, and many others. He teaches that Christianity, which demands from its followers meekness, humility, kindness, forgiveness of sins, the offering of the other cheek when one cheek has been smitten, love of enemies, is incompatible with violence, which forms an indispensable condition of power.
A Christian, according to Chelčický’s interpretation, can not only not be a chief or a soldier, but cannot even take part in the government, be a merchant or even a landowner; he can be only an artisan or an agriculturist.
This book is one of the extremely few that have survived the auto-da-fés of books in which the official Christianity is arraigned. All such books, which are called heretical, have been burned together with the authors, so that there are very few ancient works which arraign the departure of official Christianity, and so this book is especially interesting.
But besides being interesting, no matter how we look upon it, this book is one of the most remarkable productions of thoughts, as judged by the depth of its contents, and the wonderful force and beauty of the popular language, and its antiquity. And yet this book has for more than four centuries remained unprinted, and continues to be unknown, except to learned specialists.
One would think that all these kinds of works, by the Quakers, and Garrison, and Ballou, and Chelčický, which assert and prove, on the basis of the Gospel, that our world comprehends Christ’s teaching falsely, ought to rouse interest, agitation, discussions, in the midst of the pastors and of the flock.
Works of this kind, which touch on the essence of the Christian teaching, ought,
