Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/579

 THE BOHEMIAN BRETHREN. ggg At first they seem to have enjoyed the favor of Rokyzana whose doctrines they claimed to follow, and whose nephew Greg- ory was one of their earliest leaders, along with Michael, priest ot Zamberg. Rokyzana's fluctuating policy, as the archbishopric seemed to approach or recede, soon led him to hold aloof, and when they drew apart from the Calixtins and organized them- selves as a separate body he had no objection to see them perse- cuted. In vain they declared that they were neither Waldenses nor Taborites-the one was a word of bitter reproach, the other a terror. When, about 1461, Gregory, with a few companions, ventured secretly to Prague, they were betrayed as conspiring Tabontes and put to the torture. It shows their state of reh^ lous exaltation that Gregory swooned on the rack and had a bea- tific vision. It may be put to the credit of Eokyzana that when he saw his nephew insensible from the torture he burst into tears exclaimmg, "O my Gregory, I would I were where thou art."' and that he soon afterwards obtained from Podiebrad permission for them to settle at Liticz. Here they prospered amiJalternate peace and persecution, their numbers rapidly increasing * In retaining all the sacraments they retained behef in the ne- cessity of apostoHcal succession for that of ordination ; but as the sacraments were vitiated in unworthy hands, they became op- pressed with misgivings as to the efiicacy of the sacerdotal char- ^ter of their priests, derived as it was through the Church of Rome. Some of them proposed sending to the legendary Chris- tians of ndia, but they met with two men who hfd been in the Jiast and the accounts they received of the Oriental churches sat- isfied them that the succession there had been lost. Then they bethought them of the Greeks, but they met some Greeks !n For the Calixtin views on the Eucharist see the treatises of Rokyzana and of When the Brethren undertook to explain their views on the Eucharist they become somewhat difficult to understand. The bread and wine becameThe b„dv and blood, and they would have believed it had the bread been stoTe but s«ll the substance remained, and Christ was not present -Fascic Rer Eln^T^l Fugiend. 1. 165, 170, 174, 183 185 Expetend. et -hCiSTr^eS.^"'- "■ ■ ''-'■ -^'- ^— '• P- ««• -Von Ze.