USA > Pennsylvania > Lehigh County > Bethlehem > A history of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1741-1892, with some account of its founders and their early activity in America > Part 3
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6. Emigrants from Moravia figured so conspicuously among the first missionaries and first colonists of the Church in America that immediately the name Moravian was applied by English-speaking people to the entire body of the Brethren.
While therefore this name as now generally applied to the Renewed Church of the Brethren is held to be preferable in English, the various designations will be used ad libitum in these pages as convenience or suitableness may require.
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THE MORAVIAN CHURCH TO 1735.
One bore the names Calixtines, from their emblem the communion chalice, and Utraquists from the phrase sub utraque forma, i. e. the communion in both kinds. The other was known as the Taborites from the name of their chief stronghold in the Hussite wars. They were the most uncompromising radicals, politically and ecclesiasti- cally. The Utraquists, more disposed to negotiate with the Papacy and to accommodate discipline to circumstances, embodied the uni- versity party and most of the titled classes. They became the domin- ant body, strong enough at the Council of Basle (1433) to gain temporary concessions from the diplomats of Rome in what are known as the Compactata of Basle, and in sanctioning the ordina- tion, for the Waldenses, of two new priests, Frederick and John, sur- named Nemez and Wlach-German and Walloon-and their con- secration as bishops in 1434, as a stroke of policy to enlist the Utraquists and their protégés against the Taborites and for other interests then deemed more important. The Taborites rejected the Compactata, again resorted to arms, with now the Utraquists also against them, and met with an overwhelming defeat (1434) which led to their disintegration and put the Utraquists in control to de- velop a national church.
Besides the Orphans, the most extreme faction of the Taborite party, and numerous smaller sects, there existed certain circles of quiet, godly men within the Utraquist and Taborite parties who held aloof from issues between the two, declined to engage in war- fare and fostered Apostolic teaching, discipline and fellowship. These constituted the most genuine followers of Hus and furnished the seed of the Brethren's Church. From their central nucleus in Prague a colony under the leadership of Gregory, a nephew of Roky- cana, Utraquist Archbishop elect of Prague, located, early in the year 1457, near the village of Kunwald on the domain of Lititz in the north-eastern part of Bohemia, the property of George Podiebrad who the next year became King of Bohemia and who, like Rokycana, was at that time in sympathy with them. There they formed an association-tradition says on March I-based upon the Scriptures and the Articles of Prague and directed by twenty-eight Elders, three of them priests and the rest laymen of various stations-schoolmen, artisans, noblemen and peasants. For a while they seem to have spoken of themselves as "Brethren of the Law of Christ;" adverting to an utterance of John Hus, to signify their scriptural foundation and the nature of their union. Otherwise their name during the
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
first years was simply "the Brethren." They did not propose to found an independent church, but merely to foster Apostolic teaching and fellowship as a society within the National Church, doing what good they might to their surroundings, receiving the sacrament from reputable priests of the neighborhood, and pastoral care from those who had joined them, notably Michael of Bradac, called Bradacius, an aged priest of Senftenberg, their first minister.
Their increase was rapid. Four years later they had several thousand members and affiliated groups began to form at other points both in Bohemia and Moravia. The infectious influence of various erratic sects upon this mixed multitude soon made it necessary to define some principles more clearly and to adopt further regulations. The determination to search the Scriptures for authority in all things, to obey the law of Christ in life and fellowship and to avoid political entanglements was reaffirmed. Controversies on the Eu- charist having invaded the Society, the position was taken that the sacrament should be received in faith, accepting the words of Christ without formulated definition, rejecting only the doctrine of trans- substantiation. This principle laid down in 1459 was maintained permanently and is the position of the Church now. Watchful enemies aided by renegades soon found occasion in these things to accuse them before the authorities. The King and Rokycana, both fearing the growing numbers of the Brethren and desiring to keep peace with Rome in the pursuit of their own ambitions, were readily influenced against them. Persecution ensued and the main body of them retired into the mountains of Reichenau where they worshiped and held synods in the open air. In 1464 they took further steps in the hour of trial to strengthen their bond. They adopted a more elaborate code of statutes remarkable for their enlightened evan- gelical character in such times as those, for their calm, heroic tone and for their exalted charity. They constitute the earliest formal declaration of the Brethren preserved to posterity and yet extant in translations.
In 1467 they took the next step to which the logic of events directed them as indispensable to maintain their organization and pursue its high aims. This was the establishment of their own ministry through the good offices of the Waldenses with whom they had opened com- munication on the subject. After weighing the matter well in all its bearings and with much prayer, they submitted the main question to the drawing of a lot in which they believed, like the Apostles,
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THE MORAVIAN CHURCH TO 1735.
that Divine guidance would be given, and the result was affirmative. Nine worthy candidates were elected. Then they again resorted to the lot and three of these were drawn. First the priests who were present, Michael Bradacius and the rest-an aged Waldensian taking the lead-set them apart by the laying on of hands after the entire synod of about sixty men had pledged them cordial recognition. Then Michael with the Waldensian priest and another who had re- nounced allegiance to Rome and joined them, were sent to Stephen, an aged bishop of the Waldenses of Moravia, who with another of their bishops yet living claimed a genuine episcopate in their own ancient line which, however, Utraquist documents refer to as derived through the procedure at Basle in 1434. Stephen was asked to confer the episcopate upon them that they might have a ministry which would be recognized as valid amid all the circumstances that might arise in time to come. He complied by consecrating Michael who was a regular priest of Roman ordination and had been identified with the Brethren from the beginning. Michael, upon his return, ordained the three chosen men to the ministry. They were Matthias of Kunwald, Thomas of Prelouc and Elias of Chrenovic. Then he consecrated Matthias the first bishop, the others being subsequently also consecrated.2 An Executive Council of twelve men, presbyters
2 For the information of those readers who are interested in the subject of Moravian Orders it may be stated that this brief sketch rests on the most reliable sources now extant. The episcopate of the Unitas Fratrum and back of it that of the Waldenses have been made to appear doubtful by the reproduction of Romanist and Utraquist documents tending to belittle the origin and discredit the statements of the Brethren. It is characteristic of the kind of ecclesiastics who permitted the propagation of the Waldensian episcopate as a con- cession to the Nationalist parties (1433-34) that they should suppress recorded reference to the fact and file documents misrepresenting or distorting it - as characteristic as was the burning of the Waldensian Bishop Stephen at the stake in 1469 for having transferred the episcopate to the Brethren that they might become a distinct Church. That Utraquist sources are not trustworthy in this matter follows logically from their attitude and measures over against the Brethren during that and the following decade. That the Utraquist prelate, Rokycana, allied himself with the Papal party in opening a fierce persecution of the Brethren and the Waldenses, when the transactions of 1467 became known, indicates that he and the representatives of Rome took the episcopate involved and the act of transfer at their full value.
When hypercritical and captious inquiries, unfairly pressed, call for an amount of docu- mentary evidence which is not to be expected, the vicissitudes through which the historical sources of the Church have passed must be remembered. During the earliest period the Brethren recorded and published little about their doings for obvious reasons. Subsequently documents in abundance were collected but they, like the Church itself, were pursued relent-
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
and laymen, was associated with Matthias as President, and thus the Jednota Bratrska or UNITAS FRATRUM assumed the position of a distinct Church to which both Nationalists and Papists drove it by the measures adopted to terrify and scatter its members.
In the system which grew out of these beginnings, and was well established before the year 1500, the native genius of the Church asserted itself, free from the clogs which would have attended a move to reconstruct an existing national establishment, or a process organically connected with the Papal system. It had much of the character of an original institution developing from the germ and directed according to primitive Christian models. First was the Congregation as the unit-a voluntary association of like-minded be- lievers bound by a brotherly agreement and governed by an elected eldership. Then, with increase of such groups, arose the Synod as the unit of power, legislating by delegated authority. This was not altered by the introduction of the episcopate. The Synod com- mitted executive authority and administration to the Council, which again was elective and representative; for while the episcopacy was placed at the head of it-first one bishop alone, later several-the presbytery and the laiety had a voice in it, with the central principle of conferential government and collegiate administration established.
lessly by the spirit of destruction. The first archives at Senftenberg were scattered and in part destroyed before 1500. Those then collected at Leitomischl were consumed by fire in 1546. When the Counter-Reformation opened in 1621 special attention was devoted to the destruction of the remaining and added literature of the Brethren, the valuable library of Comenius, e.g. being burned in the public square. Again at the fall of Lissa in 1656 his second library and the documents of the Unitas Fratrum, once more gathered with much effort, suffered another ordeal of fire and pillage. Those rescued were conveyed from place to place, scattered and to a great extent eventually lost. Those embraced in thirteen volumes of the so-called Lissa Folios - now the most valuable collection known - did not come back into possession of the Church until 1838, when an examination of them served to correct current inaccuracies and furnish anew much forgotten information. No one, unless predisposed to make out a case against the validity of the episcopate of the Unitas Fratrum, will seriously base conclusions on detracting extraneous sources as more credible than the few ancient records of the Brethren which have survived the pitiless devastations of the centu- ries. The most that can be made of adverse sources by a historian worthy of attention is presented by Dr. Jaroslav Goll in his Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Boehmischen Brueder, Prague, 1878, and even he, although a Romanist, does not assume to have finally disposed of the matter. Extensive treatment of the subject, with citation and dis- cussion of sources, may be found in the History of the Unitas Fratrum, by Bishop Edmund de Schweinitz, S.T.D., Bethlehem, 1878. See also the Moravian Manual, Bethlehem, 1901, for a succinct narrative and a complete list of bishops from Matthias in 1467 to the last consecrated in 1901.
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THE MORAVIAN CHURCH TO 1735.
This principle, with the authority of the Synod supreme, served as a standing check on what seemed undue power committed to the bishop who was President. Later the lay element and eventually also the presbytery disappeared from the Council and it became en- tirely episcopal. This was not due however to a deliberate change of principle but resulted from the stress of perilous times when con- centration of authority was desirable; when masterful personal lead- ership was of more value than any kind of governmental machinery; when born leaders naturally found their way into the episcopacy.
Elementary conceptions entered into the system from first to last, which gave it affinity to widely divergent Protestant types of the sixteenth century. It anticipated Luther in emphasizing the priest- hood of individual believers, Zwingli in maintaining the rights of the congregation over against hierarchy, and Calvin in restoring eld- ership in church government, while, like the Church of England, it did not, in repudiating the Papacy, discard the historic episcopate and adopt parity of the clergy. These relationships appeared later in the intercourse of the Brethren with the leaders of the Reformation and, together with their doctrinal position, made possible their alliance with Lutheran and Calvinistic Protestants in the Consensus of Sendomir in 1570 and the joint Bohemian Confession of 1575, while prior to that, in 1548, when because of the alleged connection of some of their nobles with the Smalcald League a general perse- cution came upon them which led to the founding of the Polish branch of the Church, their position secured for those of them who fled to England a cordial reception as a distinct party among the "foreign Protestants" cared for in London by command of the young King Edward VI.
The complete constitution of the Church in its maturity, as last revised and adopted in 1616, shortly before its most disastrous crisis, was first published in print in 1632-33 in Bohemian, German and Latin; its title, best known in Latin, being Ratio Disciplinae Ordin- isque ecclesiastici in Unitate Fratrum Bohemorum. There will be oc- casion to refer to it again.
It would exceed the purpose and limit of this sketch to trace events in chronological order, even very briefly, from the important year 1467 to the disruption of the Church which terminated the ancient period of its organized existence soon after the opening of the Thirty- years' War.
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
Its history during that century and a half is most conspicuously one of persecution renewed again and again with a relentless deter- mination that has few parallels in the records of religious intoler- ance and political tyranny. The Brethren, more than any other people of the realm, were hated and dreaded by those who ruled by these means, because they fearlessly advocated truth and right, spread the teachings of the gospel, educated the masses to think for themselves, which was dangerous to corrupt domination in church and state; because they were more firmly and intelligently united than any other party, standing upon their own distinct basis and wielding an influence among titled families, scholars, burghers and peasants which neither Utraquists nor Papists could enlist for any joint or rival purpose. Therefore they were the perpetual object of jealous antipathy from both sides, and usually each could count upon the other to support, or at least to not obstruct the edicts which again and again were promulgated against them. When these measures were designed to not merely harass the Brethren, but even to open a general campaign of complete suppression, as was the case with the famous Edict of St. James in 1508 and its renewal in 1547, all the barbarities so common in that rude age, where tyranny and fanaticism resorted to force, were inflicted upon them. Languish- ing in loathsome dungeons, freezing and starving in the forests and mountain fastnesses, enduring every species of torture which refined cruelty could invent, undaunted by the executioner's torch or steel ; or leaving possessions and comforts behind to go penniless by multitudes into dreary exile, their heroic witnesses added a long array to "the noble army of martyrs" who "obtained a good report through faith." There were of course those who in such extremities faltered and renounced that for which others laid down their lives, but, in general, the steadfast loyalty of the Brethren to their Church was as impressive as their resolute adherence to the Scriptures as their standard. Its origin, system, methods, worship and attitude towards all issues of the time embodied the best ideals of the nation and made it in a peculiar sense the people's church, to which they clung with the characteristic tenacity of their race. In the baronial castle and in the peasant's cottage the true heart of the people spoke in its confessions and its hymns. Its power of endurance carried it safely through one after another internal crisis also, in ridding itself of eccentric factions which threatened to pervert its course, extricating itself from narrow trammels when it outgrew
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THE MORAVIAN CHURCH TO 1735.
them and gradually casting off old errors as it advanced in scriptural knowledge. Its speedy recuperation after periods of persecution and its rapid growth during the intervals of peace were phenomenal. When the German Reformation began in 1517 the Unitas Fratrum had nearly two hundred thousand members and about four hundred places of worship. Its parish schools were educating its peasantry to a standard far above that of their surroundings and its seats of higher learning were sought out by many nobles outside of its pale. It had two Theological Seminaries in Moravia and one in Bohemia in the sixteenth century and one was founded later in Poland. The Brethren led the literary activity of the realm, owning and operating three of the five printing-presses in Bohemia prior to 1520, and during the first decade of that century issuing vastly more printed matter than appeared from all other sources in that country. The fondness of the people for music was gratified and utilized from the beginning by the cultivation of congregational singing. The first collection of hymns was printed by the Unitas Fratrum in 150I, as the latest investigations have proved by the discovery of a copy yet in existence. Successive revisions and improvements were made, and soon after the middle of the century there were complete hymnals in Bohemian, German and Polish, mature in plan and rich in matter ; the principal editions having the notes of the tunes printed with the hymns. The greatest literary production of the Church was its Bohemian version of the Bible, the task of eight of its learned men laboring fifteen years. The translation was, like that of the New Testament alone in 1564, made from the Hebrew and Greek text instead of the Latin vulgate as in the case of other Bohemian versions, and it was published complete at Kralic in Moravia in 1593. Both in its value as the Holy Word given the people in their own tongue and as a noble classic of the national language it was for Bohemia and Moravia what Luther's Bible was for Germany.
The importance to which the Unitas Fratrum had risen in the sixteenth century is not generally recognized. It is overshadowed in the retrospect by the magnitude of the movements in Germany in that century. Besides this, the people and language of the land of Hus could not participate in the modern Protestant developments after the issues of the Thirty-years' War were settled, because at the beginning of it the country was ruined by the Romish reactionary crusade which there did its worst, and the Church which most truly embodied the native evangelical spirit was crushed. German Pro-
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
testant writers of church history have usually drawn rather too sharp a dividing line between the old darkness and the new light for all Western Europe at the beginning of the German Reformation, while the leading modern Bohemian historians who patriotically bring out the grand things of their country which were buried under the cataclysm of the seventeenth century and, with a fair degree of appreciation, give the Church of the Brethren the prominence it deserves as the embodiment of noble ideals heroically pursued, do not usually write from the standpoint of Protestants and therefore do not take pains to point out particularly those things in its teach- ing and activity in which the standards of Protestantism were antici- pated by "Reformers before the Reformation."
With all they had attained through their diligent study of the Scriptures, they were willing, like all honest searchers for the truth, to learn from any who had a clearer insight into Apostolic teaching in any point. The influence of Luther, with whom they first en- tered into communication in 1522, is evident in their progress in formulating evangelical doctrines after that time. They acknow- ledged his eminence as a restorer of sound theology, while he praised their superiority in maintaining scriptural discipline and fos- tering vital godliness. He wrote a preface to one of their con- fessions and published it at Wittenberg in 1533, as an evidence of what remained in Bohemia and Moravia from the holy seed sown by Hus more than a century before. Some of their numerous declarations, apologies and confessions were called forth by the frequent necessity of giving an account of themselves to friend or foe; others were intended to supersede previous ones as the fruit of deeper study in Divine things. Their last comprehensive con- fession, presenting their system of doctrine in its final maturity, ap- peared in 1573, two years before the joint confession of the three evangelical parties of Bohemia already referred to. The latest edition of it was published in 1612 when the Church was at last enjoying triumphant liberty, but at the same time was approaching its great catastrophe.
In 1609 the persistent efforts of the Evangelical parties in Bohemia and Moravia finally secured an imperial charter of religious liberty, and the Brethren's Church reached the summit of outward as- cendency. Although the influential nobles in its connection, with the adherents of the other Protestant confessions, used the advantage thus gained to strengthen their position in the state and make the
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THE MORAVIAN CHURCH TO 1735.
victory permanent if possible, subtile forces were at work to produce an irresistible reaction and the Romish Counter-Reformation was taking shape right in the years of exultant triumph. The song of the people entered the ear of a cruel fanatic in whose hand the coun- try's future lay, the Archduke Ferdinand of Styria, who had promised his Jesuit preceptor to make the complete re-establishment of Papal dominion in Bohemia and Moravia his great work. The political conditions which were leading the states of Western Europe into three decades of conflict and chaos soon gave him his opportunity. In 1617 he became King of Bohemia. Futile efforts of the evan- gelical parties to avert the doom which this foretokened, strengthened his purpose.
Two years later this sworn enemy of all liberty ascended the throne of the empire as Ferdinand the Second, and it soon appeared how ruthlessly he proposed to execute his plans. In the battle of the White Mountain, November 8, 1620, the Protestant forces were utterly routed and then he commenced his work of desolation. The bishops and ministers of the Unitas Fratrum were put under an edict of banishment, its churches and schools were forcibly closed and all its property was confiscated. The Calvinistic ministers were similarly dealt with and ere long those of the Lutheran confession also. A year later torture and cruel death began to be inflicted upon those who dared to remain, and many of their people shared their fate. June 21, 1621, twenty-seven Bohemian patriots, most of them dis- tinguished noblemen and many of them members of the Unitas, were beheaded in Prague. That day is known in Bohemian history as "the day of blood." During the years 1624 to 1626 special emissaries traversed the land proclaiming the ultimatum, exile or death for all who would not renounce evangelical faith and church connection. Thousands left their homes and fled to Protestant countries. Mean- while other agents were engaged in the systematic destruction of evangelical literature, that of the Brethren being particularly sought for. One person is said to have boasted that he had burned over sixty thousand volumes. To all of these measures were added cun- ningly devised schemes to impoverish the country, bankrupting the rich and starving the poor in order to reduce the people to sub- mission. Finally in 1627 the charter of 1609 was formally revoked and imperial edicts were issued which made every non-Romanist practically an outlaw. This was followed in 1628 by a general exodus of the best people in the country. Some villages were almost de-
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