Page:The Net of Faith.pdf/69

21 There has been much conjecture as to where and when Peter Chelčicky was born. There are two general theories: Until recently, the consensus of scholars agreed that the date of his birth should be sought in the year 1390 – or possibly sooner – but definitely not later. In other words, he was supposed to have been born some time in the middle of the reign of King Vaclav IV of the Luxembourg Dynasty. According to this theory, his birthplace is to be found in Chelčice, a village not very far from Vodniany and Husinec (the birthplace of John Hus) in the region where, fifteen decades before, Peter Waldo presumably died. To his friends he was known as Brother Peter; and if this theory is correct, he began to call himself "Chelc̄icky̍" after the village of Chelčice only in his thirties. Rudolf Holinka's Introduction to. Prague:Melantrich, 1940, p.6.

'Wenceslas’ (1378–1419), son of Charles IV.

The name "Chelc̄icky̍" is pronounced, with accent on the first syllable. This name is so intrinsically Czech that it presents almost insurmountable obstacles of pronunciation to non-Slavs. Foreign commentators have mistreated this name as badly as they have mismanaged the name of Wyclif (spelled in 19 different ways). The German translator and biographer Vogl spells his name, while the English translator of Tolstoy's book, The Kingdom of God Is Within You, spells it. The philosopher himself never ventured to latinize his name as was the fashion of the Middle Ages. In my series of articles, "A Short Prehistory of Moravianism," in, vol.88 (July–August 1943), I used – out of consideration for the American reader the latinized form of "Khelsicus." In this study, however, we shall avoid all such semantic monstrosities and adhere to the original Czech name, Chelc̄icky̍.