A Study of Peter Chelčický's Life and a Translation from Czech of Part I of His Net of Faith (1947)/Part 1/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V
PETER CHELC̄ICKY̍ – HIS PHILOSOPHY
When God commands a thing to be done, against the customs or compact of any people, though it were never by them done heretofore, it is to be done.
This yearning for a life of more abundant Christian expression was incorporated in Chelc̄icky̍'s greatest work, the Net of True Faith, written some time between the years 1440 1443, during the interregnum following the death of King Albrecht of Hapsburg.1 His whole philosophy of life and history is represented in this book. Its central theme is the relation of the Church and state, and the Christian's place in that relation. The thesis is presented in the form of an exposition of the story of the miraculous "inclusion of fishes" according to Luke's narrative (5:4–11). As far as we know, this is a unique interpretation of the gospel story; in most medieval treatises, learned men and theologians wasted themselves in fanciful trivialities. But Chelc̄icky̍, starting with his allegory and bringing out its ethical, political and economic implications, goes far beyond these stereotyped commentaries. In reading his interpretation of the story we realize that
In his allegory, the net becomes the symbol of the Christian religion; in the net there is a multitude of fish caught by the apostles who are aided by Jesus. They represent the Christians. The loving will of God offers to men His net of faith in Jesus Christ and with it his salvation. And so there comes down into the sea of human bondage, sin and misery, a veritable symbol of the divine agape̍, the net of faith, to do its work of redemption. But the net became greatly torn
The nearest resemblance to Chelc̄icky̍'s net of faith in treatment and motif which we could find is contained in the noted Hortus deliciarum of the Abbess Herrade of Landsberg4 which reproduces pictorially an idea founded on the Book of Job (41:1ff),5 and of which Māle traces the seminal thought back to St. Jerome in the 5th century, and thence down through St. Gregory the Great,6 St.Odo of Cluny,7 and Bruno of Asti,8 to Honorius d'Autun who thus describes the symbolism:
A MINIATURE DRAWING FROM THE BOOK
HORTUS DELICIARUM OF THE ABBESS HERRADS OF LANDSBERG
(REPRODUCED FROM L'ART RELIGIEUX DU XIIIe SIECLE EN
FRANCE. BY EMILE MALE, PARIS: 1925, 5th Ed.)
The background for Chelc̄icky̍'s allegory is his belief in the so-called Donation of Constantine, a belief, by the way, based on the authority of John Hus,10 and probably also on the Waldensian version of the Donation.11
There was drawn up, presumably in the papal chancellery during the third quarter of the eighth century, a forged document alleged to be a donation of the Emperor Constantine12 to Pope Sylvester I.13 This document relates that when the pagan Constantine was healed of leprosy, by the pope, he professed Christianity. In gratitude he decided to vacate Rome, removing the imperial capital to Constantinople. As his legacy to Sylvester he left
The papal theocracy based its whole legal justification on the imposing Petrine theory combined with the forged Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals,15 of which the Donatio Constantini is just one document. All men of the Middle Ages believed in this donation, and so did Peter Chelc̄icky̍.16 It was often quoted by popes and papal partisans in their subsequent struggles for temporal power.17 For seven hundred years it was believed to be authentic, even though there were men who wished it were a forgery, which Nicholas of Cusa18 had suspected, but the honor of discovering their falsehood was left to Lorenzo Valla, the famous Italian humanist,19 who showed in a scathing work of 1440, De falso credita et emendita Constantini donatione declamatio, that its Latin could not possibly have been written in the fourth century. Be it as it may, the fact remains that by the Edict of Milan20 Constantine raised Christianity to equality with the public pagan cults; the final act was the seizure of the power of the state and the baming of other competing cults.
Constantine insisted upon unity within the Church and hence was drawn into the problems of sectarian strife. In this sphere he undertook to uphold the opinion of the majority of bishops and exercised the right to summon and preside over councils and to validate and enforce their decisions. This exercise of imperial authority in religious matters was the initial step in the development of caesaro-papism.
Chelc̄icky̍ and the Donation of Constantine
Chelc̄icky̍ did not possess the phenomenal historic knowledge of Lorenzo Valla, and he never heard of the latter’s discoveries. He did not doubt the authenticity of the Donation but he attacked its juridical validity on ethical and Biblical grounds. It is a strange coincidence that both books, the Net of Faith and the Declamatio de Donatione should have been published almost simultaneously.22 Each of these books, one written in humanist Italy, and the other in "heretical" Bohemia, represented a mighty blow at ecclesiastical imperialism and falsehood.
Chelc̄icky̍'s historic presupposition is wrong but his ultimate analysis of the secularization of the Church and its identification with the temporal power is correct. Mythologically, the Donation presents a profound truth. It was when the Donation took place, according to Chelčicky, that the "two great whales" – the Emperor and the Pope – entered the net of faith, "rending it in many places. Declaring the law of God to be the sole rule of faith and life, he postulated the abolition of all church institutions not compatible with this 
FRONTISPIECE ILLUSTRATION OF THE 1521 EDITION OF THE
NET OF FAITH
PRINTED IN THE MONASTERY OF VILÉMOV
I. THE STATE
Chelc̄icky̍ antedates Kropotkin by several centuries when he writes that the state is based on violence, plunder, and proud individualism.23 But where Kropotkin speaks in terms of economics, Chelc̄icky̍ speaks with prophetic earnestness in terms of a theocentric history. As he sees it, Gideon the "faithful Jew" of the Old Testament, answered his followers with true divine sanction when he refused the crown they had come to offer to him:
I will not rule over you, nor shall my sons rule over you, since the Lord God rules over you!24
The state has its origin in man's pride and rebellion against God.25 Just as the Jews rejected the law of God by inviting Saul to rule over them, so the Christians later on rejected God by accepting the Donation of Constantine.26 And having its origin in sin, the state has become a tool of punishment.27 This is well illustrated in the records of King Solomon's rule who, in all the glory of his wisdom, brought terrible sufferings upon his people.28
The state's existence may be justifiable as a "necessary evil" only for the pagans among whom it works as a plaster on an abscess"29 since, if thay had "no prince with a sword in his hands," there would be no justice, but a war of all people against all, and depravity and violence would be the general rule. However, the heathens knew not the teachings of Christ who tells us to love our neighbor and to do good to them that persecute us. And Christians? They must abstain from all violence:
Therefore a Christian. state is a contradiction in terms. For it is in the nature of the state to rule by coërcion and force.31 However, the rule of Christ is perfect,
A Christian cannot rule for God is the only ruler.33 A secular ruler is bound, by virtue of his sovereignty, to use violence and other non-Christian methods.34 If he should, perchance, become a Christian, his only means of ruling would then be persuasion, that is, preaching:
In this teaching, Chelc̄icky̍ comes very close to the Gelasian doctrine of the two powers.36 Furthermore, says he, sovereignty goes always hand in hand with aggressiveness and imperialism. It is in the nature of all rulers to use un-Christian means for their ends of aggrandizement:
That is why no Christian can have any part in any government.38 He is good because it is God's will and not because the state requires it.39 His ethic is therefore superior to that of non-Christians who abide only by a legal goodness.40 For the same reason no Christian can exercise authority over another Christian.41 This fundamental postulate underlies all of Chelc̄icky̍'s philosophy. It carries with it many implications: A Christian cannot tax another Christian42; however, if Christians live in a non-Christian state, they ought to pay their taxes for the sake of public peace.43 A Christian may not perform military service for that means imposition of a coercive burden on other Christians.44
Men are governed not so much by the tyrants they fear as by the institutions they love; and what is, therefore, more worth loving than the "sweet rule of Christ?" In the long run love, not fear and coërcion and hatred, will prevail:
To him who obeys God the state becomes a superfluity; for the fulness of the law is love:
Chelc̄icky̍ does not argue against any state as such,47 but against the abuse that such a center of power and violence be given a Christian name and justification.48 While on earth, the Christians are a true colony of heaven, and the laws of heaven are undefiled by compulsion. These laws are different from the "earthly" laws in that hey never enforce obedience; man has to turn away from his evil ways by his own volition; and there are always two alternatives before man:
the devil and the world call us to the worst evil.
Therefore, choose joy or choose hell.
The choice of either of these ways is in thy hands."49
In the fourteenth chapter, one of the most important chapters of the whole book, Chelc̄icky̍ sums up in eloquent words the core of his conviction that "Christ's commandment of love could make one multitude out of a thousand worlds, one heart, and one soul. It will lead man into the fullest life, it will make him most precious to God, and man to man will be a gain!"50
II. THE CHURCH
God is the end, love is the means. That is the rule of Christ's kingdom whose earthly image is the Church. Christ is the true head of the Church51; "the beginning of his kingdom is at the end of men's sins"52 and his law is love.53
for a redeeming administration of God's people.54
It is an apotheosis of free will55 and it functions only when man responds through personal discipline"56 to the divine agape̍.57 The Church comprises all righteous Christians gathered in the Net of Faith by the apostles.58As long as Christ was the sole ruler of the apostolic Church – that is,– for the first three hundred years, it was perfect.59 But when Pope Sylvester accepted the Donation of Constantine60 the net of faith became badly torn."61 And when he has allied the Church with secular power he "has mixed poison with Christ's gospel."62 Since then, the social utility of the priestly Church has been to invoke divine sanctions in defense of the status quo, however bad.63
In order to increase the power of the Church, the Pope has arrogated to himself all prerogatives of Christ:65
Through participation in power politics, by condoning wars and even by issuing war bonds for their prosecution,67 the Church of Rome has lost its spiritual heritage. Only those who obey Christ are members of the true Church. The true Church isn't found even among the Hussites, those "raging locusts."68
Chelc̄icky̍ gave considerable thought and attention to one of the most important and spectacular events of Christendom in his age, the Council of Basel.69 Out of ninety-five chapters of his Net of Faith he devotes full fifteen70 chapters to the Basel proceedings. Needless to say, he is very disappointed in the display of power and ecclesiastical hypocrisy so manifest at Basel. He is scandalized at the pharisaic ratiocinations profferred by high church dignitaries in the name of Christian truth. The Council may have repeatedly pronounced that the Holy Spirit was presiding over it, but Chelc̄icky̍ saw nothing in it but the work of the devil himself:
He took to task especially the Papal Auditor Juan Palomar,72 one of the chief opponents of the Hussite position, and the Parisian professor of theology Giles Charlier, who had several public disputations with the Taborite Bishop Nicholas of Pelhr̄imov.73 In reading those pages of the Net of Faith which deal with the Council of Basel we cannot be but impressed by Chelc̄icky̍'s deep shock and holy wrath at the double ethic of men who were supposed to represent western Christendom. And we realize more clearly the urgent necessity of Reformation. With all the faults that Chelcicky saw in Hussitism it still, was a clean current in the midst of the stagnant waters of medieval Christianity. Its representatives alone insisted on the removal of the several hundred prostitutes from Basel during the council session. And it was Giles Charlier who took upon himself the task of defending the presence of prostitution in Basel.74 In its defense he used scriptural references as well as such authorities as St. Jerome and St. Augustine.75
The learned men of Basel and the Church doctors may know a great deal, said, Chelc̄icky̍, but they know nothing about a Christian life "lived in perfection and in accordance with the law of God."77
He little respected the Church doctors and saints used by the Romanists to bolster up their patristic edifice of power. Albertus Magnus, the most respected medieval authority of ecclesiastical learning, he called "that loudly howling Albertus,78 and he was not much more flattering to St. Augustine to whom he often referred to as that pillar standing in Rome."79 He felt that it was St. Augustine who was the most responsible for providing the Roman Church with a theology of ecclesiastical imperialism:
But the greatest sin the Church has committed is her alliance with the state and with the secular methods of power,81 institutionalism,82 and coërcion.83
The Christians have fallen short of the ideal and and the only remedy is to obey the Inner Light which comes of the grace of God.
III. CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM
The founder of the German Reformation has written somewhere that man could change but that only God could better. But oddly Luther – the son of a peasant – failed to explain why God worked so exclusively on the side of the ruling classes. Chelc̄icky̍ – the son of a nobleman, if the Za̍horka theory proves correct – insisted that the devil rather preferred working with the ruling noblemen and churchmen!
. . .The pagans do not have . . . to contend with so many lords and useless clergymen who all hold great dominions. . . Yea, they do not bear their sword in vain, they rob and oppress the poor working people.85
The nobility and the priesthood have "alienated the people from God." Naturally, Chelčicky did not accept Wyclif's division of men into three estates (noblemen, priests, and the working people).86 Such division, said, he, amounts to an enforced grouping of men into the following professions:
1) the estate of the ruling class which conducts defensive warfare, kills, burns, and hangs;
2) the estate of the common and higher priests who pray;
3) the estate of the common peasants who must slave and feed the two upper-class insatiable Baals.87
This division is contrary to the law of Christ and only leads to further evils.
To divide Christendom into classes is tantamount dividing the body of Christ.89
There are many eloquent passages that show that Chelc̄icky̍ was far ahead of his time with his strong social consciousness:
Wyclif's sanction of the old threefold division only perpetuates the old evil which Christ came to abolish. He came to make men free:
God's wrath will punish terribly the ruling upper class which abetted social exploitation:
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A PRINTED PAGE FROM THE 1521 EDITION OF THE
NET OF FAITH
(THE SECTION SHOWS THE BEGINNING OF THE THIRTY-SECOND CHAPTER. AT THE END OF THE SECOND LINE AND BEGINNING OF THE THIRD LINE ARE THE WORDS "Mistr Protiwa" –I.E. THE "MASTER ADVERSARY"– WHICH STANDS FOR JOHN WYCLIF)
For faith apart from works is dead, useless, and devilish; real faith is alive, useful and Christian.94
His communism is thoroughly Christian springing from a theocentric view of life:
The earth is the Lord's and its fulness, that is, its mountains and valleys and all regions. . . . Who is not God's, has no right to possess anything that belongs to God, unless he has taken or to hold possession of it illegally and by violence. Thus, contrary to the divine law, our fathers bought and established illegal claims for us . . . and this is our natural heritage: poverty and shame and death. . . But God shall regard all these unlawful property holders as traitors of the Kingdom of God.95
True followers of Christ obey the commandments of God, love their neighbours as themselves,96 and cannot therefore take part in any unjust "manner of pagan rulership."97
Luther weakened the foundation of the Church by strengthening the fortifications of the state; Chelc̄icky̍ proclaimed that both the Church and the State were built on quicksand, and that all earnest Christians must build a new society on the firm foundation of "Christ's law of love."98
IV. PACIFISM
"If a murder is committed privately it is a crime, but if it happens with state authority, courage is the name for it." Chelc̄icky̍ echoes these words of Cyprian99 with the whole being of his personality. Basing his conviction on Christ's teaching he fully adopted the position of the early Church Fathers and in many ways anticipated Tolstoy and Gandhi in trying to seek the source of war.
"The sword separates the Christian from God," he wrote in the Net of Faith.100 In the sight of God, war is always murder. What is the beginning of wars?
Their root is in intemperate self-love and in immoderate affection for temporal possessions. And these conflicts are brought into this world because men do not trust the Son of God enough to abide by his commandments.101
Covetousness and lust for power is the cause of every war. Cain was surfeited with pride of possessions; for this reason he was the first to fortify a city,102 since it is inevitable that possessors always have to think of aggressors.
The lords try to embrace as much of the earth as they are able, using every means and every ruse or violence to get hold of the territory of the weaker, sometimes by money and at other times by inheritance, but always desiring to rule and to extend their realm as far as they can.103
"Death sits in the shadow of authority"104 which exercises its power contrary to Christ's will105 and a Christian has a duty to resist it. An arrogant state authority is a trap for good Christians; it compels its subjects to go and do every evil it can think of.106 Christ's death established a covenant relationship between man and God which outlawed war forever.107 Military service and conscription are a "compulsory sin"108 and to obey the call issued either by the state or the Church is tantamaunt to honoring sin and the devil.109 The conscripted men
run to war doing to their neighbors that which God has forbidden and which would not be tolerated at home. The commandment of God says, "So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them." But he who goes to war does evil to them of whom he he would wish that they do good to him; and what he would be loath doing at home, that he gladly does obeying the orders of his lords.110
The true followers of Jesus would rather be martyrs than be accomplices in war:
They would refuse to storm the walls, to run like cattle, to destroy, to murder and to rob; instead, they would rather perish under the sword than to do these things so revolting to the law of God.111
True Christians must obey their authorities passively, pay their taxes, but active participation is incompatible with Christian virtues.
Man is possessed by the possessions he has. A Christian should not be a slave of material things.
A pagan fights to protect his rights and his property in court or in field; a Christian conducts his life with love, patiently enduring injustice, as he will be rewarded by an eternal gain.112
A Christian must abstrain therefore from courts and lawsuits. And it goes without saying that capital punishment contradicts the law of love."113 The priests who support the state authority in its "right" to conduct wars and enforce justice by capital punishment
are making God as having two mouths, with one saying, "thou shalt not kill," and with the other, 'thou shalt kill."114
God is the sovereign, the Pantokrator, and all human sovereignties, states, and possessions are as nothing in His eyes:
Who becomes acquainted with the law of God cannot create nor recognize nor obey any other law, nor no other law is right.115
God is love.
V. CHELC̄ICKY̍'S STYLE
Peter Chelc̄icky̍'s Net of Faith does not read as easily as the Praise of Folly by Erasmus of Rotterdam; it is the product of a man who did not have a formal education which the other absorbed in abundance. We often notice at the beginning of chapters that he meets difficulty in going into the medias res; he is redundant, at times cumbersone, but once he warms up to his subject, he can write passages of rare beauty and spiritual insignt. He is not afraid of using home spun turns of speech nor afraid of calling a spade a spade.
His life on the farm in Chelčice is reflected in many illustrations taken from the agricultural environment:
Many a king does not know the King of Heaven, but he still is like a plough in the hands of the plowman.116
This world which seeks God on the surface is like a goat gnawing the outer bark of a willow; the power and aliveness of faith is hidden from it.117
(The Pope) was grafted by the Emperor onto the tree of pagan rule in order to enjoy a most exalted priesthood, and everything stemming from the grafting of this tree is supposed to be more worthy of respect.118
Chelc̄icky̍ is no introvert when writing; especially when carried away by his righteous indignation of social injustices or ecclesiastical stupidity and hypocrisy, he does not mince his words and uses oftentimes harsh expressions:
(The Pope) seldom celebrates mass, never preaches, and never works; that is, the only work which he instituted for himself is the blessing of those whom he loves and the excommunication of those he does not love. And so he lies in luxuries and gorges himself like a hog wallowing in a sty.119
And all this (decadence) has been smuggled into faith with the pagan rule, like an evil smelling corpse, to the great defilement of faith. . .120
The Net of Faith is full of vivid illustrations of the medieval life and is most descriptive especially in the second volume. That section, from the literary point of view more interesting in many respects, is not included in this thesis because it is an elaboration of the main philosophy presented in Book One.
In the Czech original, the Net of Faith represents a gem of medieval Bohemian literature, excelling in originality of style, purity of expression untouched by foreign affectations, masculine straightforwardness and occasional tenderness that brings him very close to an authentic mystic expression:
"If any man wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." And if your physical will does not want it and rebels against it, compel it yourself. You yourself must rebel against your unwilling will and follow reason. Deny yourself; cling to God through grace, fulfilling His good will by emptying your own ill-will, for the love of God your Lord!121
Throughout the book Brother Peter of Chelc̄ice speaks to us with a great urgency; let us listen to him for the Burden of the Lord is upon him. "Woe unto them that are at ease in Rome and in Prague," cries the Amos of Bohemia; yet, throughout his message there is a warm undertone of everpresent Divine love. It is this undertone which gives the Net of Faith its true grandeur and a relevance for our own "misguided and distraught times:"
Our faith obliges us to bind wounds, not to make blood run.
AMEN
A STATUE OF PETER CHELC̄ICKY̍
BY
PROFESSOR JAN STRAKA OF PRAGUE
1 R. Holinka, Trakta̍ty Petra Chelc̄icke̍ho. ., p.21; Emil Smeta̍nka, ed., Si̍t vi̍ry, Prague, 2nd ed., 1929, p.vii; concerning the dating, cf. Goll in C̄asopis c̄eske̍ho musea, 1881, p.16, and, by the same author, Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Böhmischen Brüder, vol.II, p.68 (Prague, 1882); a clue to the dating is found in the Net of Faith (here after referred to as NF), chap.XIV, p.76* (". .for the squires would like to have a foreign king, a rich German, who would add alien countries to his own. . .").
4 Straub and Keller, Hortus deliciarum, pl.xxiv, quoted by Emile Māle, infra.
5 Canst thou draw out Leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn?. . .
6 Migne, ed., "Patrologiae cursus completus," vol.76: Sancti Gregorii Moralium libri in Job, col.489.
7 Migne, ed., "Patrologiae" vol.133: Sancti Odonis . . . Moralium libri xxxv, p.490,D: . . .Sed Leviathan iste hamo captus est, quia in redemptore nostro dum per satellites suos escam corporis momordit, divinitatis illum aculeus perforavit. Hujus hami linea Christi est genealogia.. . . Sicut per nares insidiae, ita per circulum divinae virtutis omnipotentia designatur. . .
8 Migne, ed., "Patrologiae" vol.164: Brunon d'Asti, In Job, p.685.
9 "Le̍viathan, le monstre qui nage dans la mer du monde, c'est Satan. Dieu a lance̍ la ligne dans cette mer. La corde de la ligne, c'est la divinite̍ humaine du Christ; le fer de l'hameçon, c'est la divinite̍ de Je̍sus-Christ; l'appāt, c'est son humanite̍. Attire̍ par l'odeur de la chair, Le̍viathan veut le saisir, mais l'hameçon lui de̍chire la māchoire. (Quoted in the great work on medieval art, L'art religieux du XIIIe siecle en France, by Emile Māle, Paris: Armand Colin, 6th ed., 1925, pp.384 et sqq. Coulton remarks that this symbolism is one of the medieval methods of explaining the Atonement to the popular mind, and that it ranks side by side with that other simile, immortalized by the great schoolman Peter Lombard (Sent.III, dist.xix, a), that God made a mouse-trap for the devil and baited it with Christ's human flesh. (G.G.Coulton, Art and the Reformation, New York, Knopf, 1928, p.298).
10 Cf. F.M.Bartos̄, Hleda̍ni̍ podstaty v c̄eske̍ reformaci (Seeking of the Essence of Christianity in the Czech Reformation), Prague: Kalich, 1939, p.4, n.9.
11 cf. NF, I, chap.XXII, pp.117f, n.9.
12 regnabat 306–337.
13 regnabat 314–336.
14 R.G.D. Laffan, Select Documents of European History, London: 1930, vol.I, pp.4–5. The legend of the Donation was pictorialized about A.D.1250 in ten murals of the oratory of St.Sylvester near the Church of Santi Quattro, Incoronati on Monte Celio, Rome. (Cf. Archivio della Societa̍ romana di Sta.Patria, Rome, 1889, p.162).
15 The Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals consist of two parts; the first part contains about 60 epistles of popes, beginning with St.Clement (cca.A.D.95) and ending with Melchiades (314) (cf. NF, I, chap.XV, p.89*), and for the most part professedly addressed to all the bishops of the Church Universal. The epistles ascribed to Clement are ancient forgeries, and the remainder of the decretals are false documents issuing from the school of Boniface in Metz, and were first published by one Isidore Mercator, cca.A.D.850, being at once accepted in Rome and made part of the body of the pontifical law. (Littledale, The Petrine Claims, London: 1889, p.347).The second part consists of papal decrees of the period between Sylvester I (regnabat 314–336) and Gregory II (regnabat 715–731) of which 39 are spurious, and of the acts of several councils which are quite unauthentic. It opens with the Donation of Constantine, the most famous of all these forgeries, parts of which was quoted in the text above.16 Cf. NF, I, p.43* et passim, chaps. XIV,XV,XVI–XXIII, p.99*, p.117*, n.9 (the Waldensian version), et al.
17 Rinaldi records (Annales IX, p.145), that Emperor Sigismund of the Constance Council fame, was crowned Emperor by Pope Eugenius IV only after he had re-confirmed and ratified the Donation of Constantine.
18 Nicholas of Cusa, De concordantia catholica, A.D.1435, (cf. Girolamo Mancini, Vita di Lorenzo Valla, Firenze, 1891, pp.145ff). Another clergyman who doubted the authenticity of these documents was Reginald Pecock, the Bishop of St.Asaph, who wrote in 1444 The Repressor of Over-Much Blaming of the Clergy (reprinted in London in 1860, cf. p.350–366); cf. also Marsilius of Padua, Defensor pacis, dictio II, cap.11; Dante: De monarchia, III, 10.
19 vivebat 1405–1457. Of course, Valla had immediately many enemies who wrote against his discoveries, but in vain (e.g. Antonio Cortesi di Pavia, Antivalla, etc.). It is significant, however, that Valla's discovery was reluctantly recognized as valid by the Church of Rome only 430 years later, on September 20, 1870! (Cf. Mancini, op. cit., p. 157).
20 A.D.313. Again, legend has it that Constantine granted the Edict of Toleration to the Christians after his miraculous victory at the Milvian Bridge.
21 Lewis Mumford, The Condition of Man, New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1944, p.70.
22 The Net was written circa 1440–1443 and the Declamatio in 1440. This represents another example of the phenomenon which Toynbee calls "simultaneous pluralistic creation" (Study of History, vol.III, p.238). If we tried to explain this incident on the basis of Toynbee's interpretation of history as yin and yang we might say that the challenge presented by the bankruptcy of official Christendom to the stricken and stunned population of the nations of the Holy Roman Empire was taken up by these two men; both men were launched by their parents on the conventional career of their society and class and generation; both showed their creative genius in rebelling against the outworn convention. Both brought their genius to fruition by withdrawing: Valla by leaving Rome and going to Pavia and Florence; Chelc̄icky̍ by leaving Prague and the Taborites and going to the hamplet of Chelc̄ice. In their retreat they disentangled themselves from the trammels of society in order to return in due course with a new moral power, and a new practical policy for dealing with a new state of affairs to which the old order had no application. Cf. Toynbee's chapter "Analysis of Growth," op. cit., vol. III, pp.217–377.
23 NF, I, chap.XXIII, p.122*, et passim.; cf. Peter Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread, New York: Vanguard Press, 1927, p.17.
24 NF, I, chap. XXXV, p.157*, (Judges 8: 22–23).
25 NF, I, chaps.XXVII (p.132*) and XC (p.253* f.); 1-Sam.8:4–20 and 12:18–19.
26 Chap. XXVII, p.132*; also pp.167*, 250* et passim.
27 Chap.XXIX, p.138*; Hos. 13:9–11; pp. 207*, 267*.
28 Chap. XXXV, p.156*; 1-Ki.12:11.
33 Chap.XXX, et passim.
36 Cf. p.160*, n.2, and p.142*, n.7.
38 Chap.XXX, p.143*; cf.pp. 154*, 156*, 158*, 161*, 250*.
69 A.D. 1431–1449.
70 Chaps. XIII–XVIII, LXVIII–LXXII, LXXVII–LXXX.
72 Chap.XIII, p.63*,n.1.
73 Chap.LXVIII, p.214*,n.1.
74 Chaps.LXVIII & LXXVII.