share the gain of His suffering. Therefore from all these causes they are displeasing to God, and harmful and burdensome to men. For the toiling community bears a heavy burden in the nobles; for they devour the poor, and everything good that is found in the land, that they grasp and devour, and greatly do they harm the whole people." It must not be thought that Chelčicky's democratic views were opposed to the privileges of the nobility only. The special rights enjoyed by the citizens of some Bohemian towns, the privileged position of the clergy, even the intellectual superiority of the masters of the university, all were equally odious to the fanatical leveller Chelčicky. Of the citizens he writes thus: "I shall now speak of the knavery of the citizens, who are the strength of Antichrist, adverse to Christ, an evil rabble, who are full of boldness in committing bad actions, and help one another in vigorously combating truth and in cunningly suppressing it by means of hypocrisy; they speak well of it (= truth) yet they are guests at the assemblies of evil people, and of the shameless knaves who follow the path of Judas. Therefore have these knavish townsmen too grievously torn the net of faith when they resisted the faith; they with their special town-privileges, which are similar to the government of the heathens and founded on the same principle; they are similar to the bands who have coronets and crests, and in many matters they draw at the yoke (that is, act) together. Too much, indeed, has the knavery of the townsmen increased, too strong are the worldly institutions, and too great is the power of Antichrist; for through them (the townsmen) he is prosperous in his war against Christ. Therefore faith, like a net, could not contain these many knaveries and remain intact; they have torn it open by their opposition to Christ's truth; only the lying and dead phantom of faith have they left, and the false name of Christianity."