Of Moravian works these Folios have called forth a manuscript volume of Addenda to Plitt’s MS. History; a concise account of the Brethren’s Church by Rev. Henry L. Reichel, formerly President of the Continental Theological Seminary; and Bishop Croeger’s latest “Geschichte der Alten Bruederkirche” (Gnadau, 1865).
And, last but not least, they have brought to light the Historic Treatises of John Blahoslav; the one written in Latin, in 1556,[1] the other in Bohemian somewhat later, but more in detail.[2] These Treatises are the oldest Histories of the Brethren, and the first was composed expressly in order to give the Reformers of Germany a correct account of the origin and ministry of the Church. Their importance cannot be over-estimated.
With such newly discovered original sources, then, to serve as a complement to the former secondary ones, we proceed to consider the Moravian Episcopacy.
THE PLAN OF THE BRETHREN TO SECURE THE EPISCOPACY FROM THE BOHEMIAN WALDENSES.
During the first ten years of their existence (1457 to 1467) the Bohemian Brethren were a Society rather than a Church. Occupying an isolated retreat—the Barony of Lititz in the North Eastern part of Bohemia—they endeavored to carry out among themselves the reformatory principles of John Huss, and edified one another in the Lord. Their ministers were pious priests ordained in the Calixtine or National Church. Gradually, however, they felt the necessity of a total separation from the Establishment and of a regular ecclesiastical organization of their own; and yet
- ↑ It is entitled, Summa quaedam brevissime collecta ex variis Scriptis Fratrum, qui falso Valdenses vel Piccardi vocantur, de corundem Fratrum origine et actis, and found in the viiith Lissa Folio. We have in our possession a copy of this Treatise, made in 1846, from the Folio by the then Archivist of the Brethren’s Church.
- ↑ Dr. Gindely has made a German translation of this Bohemian Hist. for the Continental Theo. Sem.
par excellence, if he were not unfortunately a son of Rome. It is certainly remarkable, however, that that Church which crushed the Brethren in the 17th century, is, through the works of one of her most learned writers, doing what she can to make their memory known in the 19th century.
