A History of Bohemian LiteratureLützow, Francis, hrabe
History
A History of Bohemian Literature
Lützow, Francis, hrabe
Czech literature -- History and criticism
"Oh, wondrous power! oh, unfathomable wisdom! oh, most delightful
goodness, how charming it is to gaze on you that have deigned to open
our eyes! And does it not beseem us to admire this: how in Christ in
this Unity are gathered together--and how properly and how usefully
for us--three things in their nature most dissimilar, as it appears
to our minds. But what is impossible to God? Oh, there is something
new, greater, and eternal joined together in this Unity. The spirit is
new; that was created when the Son of God accepted to become a man.
The body is greater than it was when long ago it was created for Adam;
for from that body the bodies of all men proceeded, and afterwards the
body of Christ, which He took from the pure virginal blood of her whom
He chose for Himself as a mother. The Word of God, then, the Son of
God the Father, that is eternal. And all this met in the one person of
our Lord Christ. And in this strange act of the entire Holy Trinity
the threefold power of God was shown. Firstly, because out of nothing
He created something. Secondly, because He made something new out of
something greater. Thirdly, because out of something mortal He made
something eternal, or, as I should rather say, because out of something
dead He made something eternal."
Štitný's two works--his books _Of General Christian Matters_ and
his _Religious Conversations_--give us all that is really valuable
in his teaching, and the other works are comparatively of slight
interest. Štitný's literary activity was, however, very great during
his whole life. It has already been mentioned that he re-wrote the
books _Of General Christian Matters_ four times, and the _Religious
Conversations_ twice. A third work of considerable size, not yet
printed, appeared in 1392, entitled _Speeches for Sundays and
Fast-days_; and to his death Štitný continued to publish smaller
writings, partly original, partly translated from other writers. In
the last years of his life the mysticism, almost always latent in the
mind of a Bohemian, obtained preponderating influence on the views of
Štitný. His latest work is a translation of the visions of St. Bridget,
a Swedish saint belonging to the early part of the thirteenth century.
As a recent Bohemian critic has justly remarked, the visions of St.
Bridget exercised on Štitný's mind, in his last years, an influence
similar to that of the "prophetess," Christina Ponatovská, on Komenský.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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