A History of Bohemian Literature

by hrabe Francis Lützow

The second preface, by Štitný himself, explains his reason for writing his work in the form of a dialogue between father and son. "Thinking then and remembering," he tells us, "how pleasant it was to me in my youth to listen to my father or mother when they talked on Christian matters, and how it was through them that I acquired some knowledge of Scripture, I devised these books, (written) as if children questioned their father and he answered them."

A quotation from the first chapter of the Religious Conversations will be interesting as showing the manner in which Štitný opens up the discussion of his difficult subject. The chapter entitled, "How the children now begin to question their father as to what God is and how He can be known to us," begins with the following question: "Dear father,[27] we would be glad to ask you, and to understand, what God is?" The father answers thus: "O children, you have asked a short, but far-reaching and very sublime question. Our intellect cannot err in believing that God exists. All creation proclaims that God is (its) creator; for no thing has made itself. Therefore all men, heathens, Jews, Christians, heretics, and philosophers, hold (= consider) something as (being) God. But what God is, that the mind of men does not fathom! Therefore it can be said that God is the ineffable Supreme Being, than whom nothing better, nothing more blissful, nothing more majestic can be imagined, nor indeed anything as good, as blissful, as majestic. For herein He (God) rises above all comprehension, above all minds of men and angels; He is always more excellent than any one can express or imagine. Thus will you ascertain what God is not, but you cannot attain to the knowledge of what He is. For whatever may be the highest majesty a man can imagine, yet He (God) is above this. If a man attains to as high a heart as he can, yet God will be raised above that. Thus many heathen errors and heresies arose, because men having in their minds imagined God in this or that fashion, they then said, 'This is God.' This indeed is true sense, to know our folly and ignorance, (wherefore) it is impossible for us to gaze on the brightness of solemn divinity, and, as it were, on the spiritual splendour of inward light, in which resides God, to whom we cannot accede. Rather let us in meekness, holding the strong and true Christian faith, merit that we may once contemplate our God, through our Lord Christ, when in that eternal kingdom of His our eyes shall be entirely and truly cleared. Let not sin so entirely blind us that we—God forbid it!—for some reason or other forget God, not loving Him in true faith above everything else. For the Scripture sayeth, 'If you do not believe, you will not understand.' Therefore, children, it beseems you to think and speak of so sublime a subject with awe and dread and discretion, and to listen with attentive ears and a pious heart, with love and not from frowardness."

Chapter xxii. of the Reči Besedni strongly brings out the acumen and lucidity with which Štitný elaborated his often difficult theological definitions. The comparisons by which he endeavours to render clearer the dogma of the Trinity are very striking. The chapter begins as usual with a question: "How then did it happen that only the Son of God accepted human nature in the unity of His person?" The father answers: "The Father or the Holy Ghost could have done so, as well as the Son. But the Lord God wished thus to accomplish this; thus in the council of all the persons of the glorious Godhead, the Holy Trinity, was it decreed—That the wisdom of the Son of God should, as was fitting, overcome the cunning of the devil; that the devil should truly lose his dominion over men when the Divine Wisdom was led to death in the human personality of one who was not obliged to die; and that the same person who in the Holy Trinity is eternally the Son should become the Son of Man.

"And that you may in a manner understand this also, how the Son of God Himself in His own personality received the human nature, and not the Father nor the Holy Ghost—though the whole Trinity is one God, and at the same time each person is a complete divinity—let us consider the similar case of the sun. Not that it is the same with it as with the Creator, but I say there is a resemblance.

"The sun has also its Trinity—that is, the body of the sun, the light which proceeds from it, and also the heat of the sun; but when the sun comes to us it gives us its light and its heat. But the light alone takes (on itself) that colour of the glass or the membrane or the cloud through which it appears to us; but the sun itself and the heat will not have this colour.

"Oh, wondrous power! oh, unfathomable wisdom! oh, most delightful goodness, how charming it is to gaze on you that have deigned to open our eyes! And does it not beseem us to admire this: how in Christ in this Unity are gathered together—and how properly and how usefully for us—three things in their nature most dissimilar, as it appears to our minds. But what is impossible to God? Oh, there is something new, greater, and eternal joined together in this Unity. The spirit is new; that was created when the Son of God accepted to become a man. The body is greater than it was when long ago it was created for Adam; for from that body the bodies of all men proceeded, and afterwards the body of Christ, which He took from the pure virginal blood of her whom He chose for Himself as a mother. The Word of God, then, the Son of God the Father, that is eternal. And all this met in the one person of our Lord Christ. And in this strange act of the entire Holy Trinity the threefold power of God was shown. Firstly, because out of nothing He created something. Secondly, because He made something new out of something greater. Thirdly, because out of something mortal He made something eternal, or, as I should rather say, because out of something dead He made something eternal."

Štitný's two works—his books Of General Christian Matters and his Religious Conversations—give us all that is really valuable in his teaching, and the other works are comparatively of slight interest. Štitný's literary activity was, however, very great during his whole life. It has already been mentioned that he re-wrote the books Of General Christian Matters four times, and the Religious Conversations twice. A third work of considerable size, not yet printed, appeared in 1392, entitled Speeches for Sundays and Fast-days; and to his death Štitný continued to publish smaller writings, partly original, partly translated from other writers. In the last years of his life the mysticism, almost always latent in the mind of a Bohemian, obtained preponderating influence on the views of Štitný. His latest work is a translation of the visions of St. Bridget, a Swedish saint belonging to the early part of the thirteenth century. As a recent Bohemian critic has justly remarked, the visions of St. Bridget exercised on Štitný's mind, in his last years, an influence similar to that of the "prophetess," Christina Ponatovská, on Komenský.

Waldhauser, Milič, Štitný, and many minor writers on theology, who do not require special notice, energetically attacked the avarice and immorality of the clergy, and loudly demanded Church reform. Yet they were careful to avoid all attacks on the dogmas of the Roman Church, and, indeed, looked to the Pope, as the head of that Church, as to the person who would initiate Church reform. Different from these views were those of Matthew of Janov, the last of the precursors of Hus whom I shall mention. Matthew obviously writes under the strong impression produced by the great schism in the Western Church, which began in 1378, four years after the death of Milič. Štitný, indeed, lived on for many years later, but age appears to have weakened his energy and his enthusiasm, and he has indeed, in the last editions of his writings, considerably attenuated many remarks contained in the earlier ones.

Great, on the other hand, was the influence of the schism on the writings of Matthew of Janov. The idea of his master, Milič, that the Pope should himself become the originator of Church reform, appeared an absurdity at a moment when two rival pontiffs were preparing to organise, by the sale of indulgences, so-called "crusades" against their opponents, whom they already attacked with the ecclesiastic arm of excommunication and the foulest personal abuse. The only remedy that appeared possible to Matthew of Janov—undoubtedly one of the profoundest thinkers of his age—was a reform of the Church in which the individual churchman was to take the initiative, and such a reform, he thought, could only consist in a return to the ways of the primitive Church, as described to us in the Scriptures.

Matthew's life was lived and lives for us in his books. Very few words will suffice to tell all that is known of the circumstances of his outer life. The year of his birth is uncertain, but we know that his father was Wenceslas of Janov, a poor Bohemian knight, and that when very young he proceeded to Prague to pursue his studies at the university there. He here fell under the spell of the eloquence of Milič of Kremsier, for whom he expresses unlimited admiration, and whom in one of his writings he describes as "the son and semblance of our Lord Jesus Christ, possessing a distinct and visible resemblance to His apostles." Matthew left Prague some time before the death of Milič, and pursued his studies at Paris for six years, obtaining there the degree of "Magister". He thence became known as "Magister Parisiensis," by which name he is generally described by contemporary writers. After spending some time at Rome and Nüremberg he returned to Prague, and in 1381 became a canon of the Cathedral of St. Vitus on the Hradčany at Prague.