Page:The Net of Faith.pdf/355

74* We understand that there are two people in Bohemia who would like to be priests with this burden of the priestly office. But a dissipating and inactive life pleases much better the majority of the priesthood. It was, indeed, very agree able to Sylvester of a corporeal heart and an incomplete faith to see the Emperor beneath him, leading the horse. In that moment he did not fear him though he was afraid before.

It was then and there that the net became greatly torn, when the two great whales had entered it, that is, the Supreme Priest wielding royal power with honor superior to the Emperor, and the second whale being the Emperor who, with his rule and offices, smuggled pagan power and violence beneath the skin of faith. And when these two monstrous whales began to turn about in the net, they rent it to such an extent that very little of it has remained intact. From these two whales so destructive of Peter's net there were spawned many scheming schools by which that net is torn that nothing but tatters and false names remain. They were first of all the hordes of monks in all manner of costumes and diversified colors; these were followed by hordes of university students and hordes of pastors; after them came the unlearned hordes with multiform coats-of-arms, Sentence not clear in the original.

This is one of Chelc̄icky̍'s technical terms. In the original the word is "rota" which has always a derogatory connotation. Literally meaning "horde," this expression sometimes connotes a profession, a caste, privileged class, an exclusive group, a faction.