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John Blahoslav, "Father and Charioteer of the Lord's People in the Unitas Fratrum"

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John Blahoslav, John Blahoslav, "Father and Charioteer of the Lord's People in the Unitas Fratrum" MILOS STRUPL Brief was the span of life which the Lord had allotted to Brother John Blahoslav. When he, "of the topmost four", one of the bishops of his communion, died on the twenty-fourth day of November 1571, while on a visit near Moravsky Krumlov, he had not yet reached his forty- ninth year. "All too soon, according to our judgment", sighed Lawrence Orlik, Blahoslav's faithful co-worker, as he was recording the death of his superior in the Necrology of the Unitas Fratrum, "it pleased the Lord to take him away; he himself knows for what reason. Mysterious divine judgments!" 1 And yet, its brevity notwithstanding, it had been a full life, crowded with the most diversified activities in the service of his beloved Unitas. For Blahoslav was indeed - quoting once more from Orlik's Necrology - "a great and outstanding man, whose fame, having been carried far and wide, excelled among other nations, a great and precious jewel of the Unitas".2 In this glowing appraisal Orlik did not remain alone. Others have voiced similar opinions. To mention just one, a modern historian, Vaclav Novotny, referred to Blahoslav as "one of the noblest spirits of his time, one of the most learned of his contemporaries, and therefore one of the most celebrated sons of his nation".3 No one will seriously question that in the history of the Unitas Fratrum Blahoslav holds a truly pivotal position. His importance must be judged in comparison with that of Brother Lucas of Prague, "the second founder of the Unitas", and that of John Amos Comenius, its last great spiritual leader and a man of undeniable international stature. However, in order to evaluate Blahoslav's true significance, we must 1 Joseph Fiedler, ed., Todtenbuch der Geistlichkeit der Böhmischen Brüder (Wien, Aus der kaiserlich-königlichen Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1863), p. 257. 2 Ibid. 3 In the lecture "Jan Blahoslav", which he delivered at Ivancice, June 21, 3 931. Printed in the Rocenka krajinského musea v Ivancicich (1932), p. 4. John Blahoslav 1233 take into account the total perspective of Czech religious and cultural life in the sixteenth century. The Unitas into which Blahoslav was born on February 20, 1523, had passed through a series of trials which, however, merely helped to solidify it theologically, give it a firm ecclesiastical structure, and trans- form it into a vital force in the religious life of the Czech nation. Shortly before the turn of the century the Unitas Fratrum emerged from its isolation and assumed an increasingly important role in the shaping of the Czech Reformation. More than that: the Unitas Fratrum entered into a fruitful dialogue with other reformatory groups on the European scene. But if, during the reign of King Louis of the Jagellonian dynasty (1516-26), it could breathe more easily, enjoying a greater freedom than before, the election of the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand of the House of Habsburg to the throne of Bohemia portended difficult days ahead. Blahoslav was a native of Prerov, born into a family where tradi- tions of the Unitas ran deep, especially on his mother's side. From her brother, his uncle Tobias Bezpero, Blahoslav heard accounts of the origins of the Unitas Fratrum and its leading personalities. The at- tachment of the family to the principles of the Unitas was further demonstrated by the fact that not only John, but his younger brother Martin Abdon, as well, became a priest of the communion. The talented boy received his first education under the tutelage of Brother John Volf, pastor of the Prerov congregation. Years later Blahoslav still remembered his first teacher with gratitude and affection as "vir pietate et innocentia insignis".4 However, when Blahoslav reached his seventeenth year, Brother Volf, well aware of the limitations of his own scholarly erudition, took his prodigious charge to Prostejov, then the seat of Brother Martin Michalec, one of the bishops or seniors of the Unitas. Blahoslav remained a member of the bishop's household until the latter's death in 1547. Yet he did not spend the whole length of time from 1540-47 in Prostejov. As early as 1543 he was sent, together with other young men, candidates for priesthood in the Unitas Fratrum, to Goldberg in Silesia, there to attend the famous Latin school of Valerian Trotzendorf. This renowned Christian humanist and peda- gogue imparted to Blahoslav a love for the beauty of the classical Latin. 4 Quoted by F. Chudoba in his essay "Jak pribyvalo vedomosti o Janu Blaho- slavovi od doby obrozenske", Sbornik Blahoslavuv, Vaclav Novotny and Rudolf Urbanek, eds. (Prerov, Nakladem Vyboru pro postaveni pomniku Blahoslava v Prerove, 1923), p. 8. 1234 Milos Strupl The Latin language became to Blahoslav almost second nature; he delighted in using it, even when writing in Czech, whenever he wanted to add color to his style or give a greater precision to the power of his expression. However, Trotzendorf's influence was even more penetrating: it was he who won Blahoslav permanently for the cause of Christian hu- manism. This dedication was further strengthened in the following year when, once more in the company of other theological students, Blahos- lav was sent to the University of Wittenberg. There he could still hear the great reformer, Dr. Martin Luther, but he was especially attracted to the Praeceptor Germaniae, Philipp Melanchthon. The one overriding reason for this attraction was Melanchthon's humanistic orientation. Blahoslav came to understand Christian humanism as "the perpetual task of a Christian who has consciously received his intellect and his talents from God with the obligation of using these gifts for the under- standing of God's things and in God's service".5 When, after a year of study, Blahoslav returned to Prostejov, dark clouds were already beginning to appear on the political horizon. From the very first moment that Ferdinand I became King of Bohemia, he was determined, not only to force through the principle of monarchistic absolutism, but also gradually to lead the Czech Utraquism into the fold of the Church of Rome. In order to accomplish this goal he first had to suppress the more radical groups of the Czech Reformation, espe- cially the so-called Neo-Utraquists and the Unitas Fratrum. Some leaders of both of these groups saw clearly that it would be to the ad- vantage of Czech Protestantism to present a unified front. Among the Brethren it was particularly John Augusta, one of its bishops since 1532, who strove for a union between the Unitas Fratrum and the Lutheran-oriented Neo-Utraquists. The negotiations which he originated as early as 1534 with the Administrator of the Utraquist Church, Wenceslas Unhost'sky, proved to be premature. Not even a later at- tempt, instigated this time by Dr. Wenceslas Mitmanek, a former Brother who eventually became a leading personality among the Neo- Utraquists, had positive results. There were misunderstandings and re- criminations on both sides. The Neo-Utraquists were not willing to become a part of a national church led by the Unitas. They were, more- over, disorganized ecclesiastically, disunited theologically, and sorely lacking a strong leading personality. And the Brethren, too, for the 5 Rudolf ftiian, Dejiny Jednoty bratrske (Praha, Kalich, 1957), p. 221. John Blahoslav 1235 most part, looked with disfavor on Augusta's efforts to achieve union among the Bohemian Protestants. In any proposed union, they feared, the Unitas Fratrum, being numerically much smaller, was bound to come out the loser. And, of course, the lack of order and discipline in the Utraquist Church presented an almost insurmountable obstacle to the Brethren, who always jealously guarded this their "precious jewel".6 Against the background of such a situation there emerged Blahoslav's first literary attempt, On the Origin of the Unitas Fratrum and the Order in It.1 The slender volume was written in Prostejov during the Lent of the momentous year 1547. Since the work was based on older historical literature of the Unitas, it has no source value. "I have col- lected almost everything from the writings of the Brethren and from what I used to hear from the pious old men, who intimately knew those men on whom the first lot fell",8 remarked Blahoslav candidly at the end of his writing. However, the work combined "an inner ardor with a charming presentation" 9 to such an extent that it could not fail to exercise a notable influence on subsequent presentations of the same subject matter. For it was Blahoslav's aim, as he wrote his little book, to strengthen the Brethren in the conviction that it was God himself who had willed the genesis of their communion and who still was the guarantor of its existence. Blahoslav's work remained in manuscript form, but it could hardly have escaped the attention of his superiors. The following year Blaho- slav, now a young man of twenty-five, was sent to Mlada Boleslav, the Bohemian center of the Unitas Fratrum, there to serve as assistant to Brother John Cerny-Nigranus. In the meantime the Unitas had been caught up in the vortex of events which came on the heels of the unfortunate and ill-conceived rebellion of the Bohemian Protestant nobles against their sovereign. They were naturally reluctant to aid Ferdinand, who wanted to assist his brother, Emperor Charles V, in his struggle with the Schmalkald League in Germany. They realized that a victory of their German core- 6 Cf. Otakar Odloziliik, "Two Reformation Leaders of the Unitas Fratrum", Church History, Vol.
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