all murder and rob one another. How can it not be dangerous, therefore, for good Christians to live under such powers, which force them to do evil and to trespass the divine commandments! And what I esteem more cruel, they drive Christian men to war – and there are Christians on both sides – with orders to kill and rob others. A brother will go against a brother to do violence to him; he who by faith should lay down his life for him goes to kill and despoil his brother, simply because he is compelled to do so by the ignoble authority.[351] He does not have so much sense or love as to be willing to be killed by his overlord rather than to commit such an evil thing. An arrogant authority is, indeed, a trap for good Christians; it compels its subjects to go and do every evil it can think of.
But the greatest iniquity and crime which the authority has committed, running into the worst form of pagan hypocrisy is revealed when – already so contrary to Christ as it is – it even kills righteous Christians for their faith, spilling their blood. For the apostles of the Antichrist have wound themselves around the heart of authority and use it now to their own advantage and for their own purposes. They have betrayed true Christianity to the powers-that-be, defaming it with heresy. And authority which of itself does not know what faith is, likewise knows not heresy. But spiritual hounds who hate the servants of Christ and of his law whisper their insinuations into the ear of authority, inciting it to exterminate those heresies with a pious ruthlessness.
That authority is therefore the strength of the Antichrist aimed at Christ and his chosen ones. And the Antichrist, with all his hatred and secret guiles, could not press so hard against Christ, if he had not a great ally in the strong temporal power. To what end has grown this authority, which has branched out its roots (planted by Constantine) among the Christians? It has brought about everything that is abominable to Christ, all sorrows, and all temptations to his saints. The hatred of the Antichrist is incited to flaming anger against Christ and his followers and it strikes the chosen ones of Christ through temporal authority (which authority the Antichrist praises to high heaven saying that through it the Holy Church stands in its firmness and goodness).
CHAPTER 24
THE EARLY CHURCH & THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH
[ In this chapter Chelčický refutes the argument which says that the Church can maintain its strength only in connection and with the support of the state authority. And this is the way he proposes to handle the argument: ]
What will be discussed here is not easy but difficult, complicated, and painful. Therefore, (I propose) to conduct the arguments in the manner of a disputation between persons of opposing ideas. One will be from the following of Jesus, namely Paul who is a good speaker and well-trained in disputation, and the other will be from the servants of the Antichrist, namely the Simoniacal priest who is the vicar of Judas.
