This book is designated by the author as “a companion volume to The Protesters”, with which most readers will be familiar. Brethren in Christ has a basically similar theme, but it presents much unusual and, in some cases, previously un-researched material which will be new even to those readers who are familiar with 16th and 17th-century European history.
Writing therefore as an historian I can say that in my opinion this book ought to be accepted as a significantly scholarly contribution to the history of the European Reformation quite apart from its value to Christadelphians.
There can be no doubt about the genuine scholarly value of Brother Eyre’s work, for the list of libraries which he visited during his research and the 305 items listed in the bibliography show both the breadth of his studies and the care taken while pursuing them. As he acknowledges, he was fortunate and well blessed in that his employer allowed and assisted his travels in North America and Europe, and he certainly seems to have made the most of his opportunities.
These opportunities began with a period of work from 1966 onwards in the Library of Congress in Washington, one of the world’s greatest libraries. In all, 31 other libraries, many of them acknowledged the world over as repositories of historical material of the greatest value, were visited, in the U.K., U.S.A., Poland, Romania, Germany, Italy, France, Austria, Switzerland, U.S.S.R. and Jamaica.
Given the fact that the people who are the subjects of this book were persecuted throughout Europe, it is perhaps surprising that so many documents by and about them have survived. In that those documents concern men and women who held the Truth, it is less surprising that the prejudices of historians have generally meant that they have been ignored.
In the Preface Brother Eyre anticipates a question that is often asked about this sort of research and its value to us:
“Were there believers of the Truth during the Middle Ages when the power and influence of the Roman Church prevailed throughout the world of Christendom?”.
His Scriptural answer is based on the usual interpretation of Daniel 7, regarding the little-horn power that made war with the saints for 1,260 days as a Divine symbol for Roman Catholic persecution of true believers from A.D. 610-1870. The material presented in Brethren in Christ testifies of itself that this interpretation is indeed accurate.
Brother Eyre is to be commended for the liberal quotations from original documents that he uses in Brethren in Christ, allowing these believers of an earlier age, though asleep in death, to speak for themselves, explain their own beliefs, and relate their own history. Much of this primary material is of course only quoted in translation, and where appropriate translators are acknowledged. The service of these translators along with the opportunities for travel both seem as though they were providentially favourable circumstances which assisted in bringing the history of these earlier brethren and sisters to light to exhort us in these last days.
In general, when he quotes at length from the writing of these brethren, or when he gives a little ‘potted biography’ of a particular individual, Brother Eyre places that particular section as an insert into the main text, and indicates the insert by surrounding it with a single rule. I found this particular technique disconcerting and unhelpful. Many of the inserts spread over more than one page, and sometimes two or three followed each other so that the main narrative text was regularly broken up and became difficult to follow.
These quotations and biographies would have been better worked into the main text, because the book as a whole would then have been rather easier to read. This is, however, a relatively trivial complaint, and it is the only one that I have to make about what in every other respect is an excellent production, both in terms of content and presentation.
Without now attempting to repeat the contents of the book in detail, I would like to focus on a handful of themes, because they illustrate the relevance of a study of these early brethren in Eastern and Central Europe to our own times, and because this gives opportunity to make some brief quotations to give the flavour of the book.
Firstly, it is intriguing to find that brethren in Christ in Moravia in the early 16th century held Bible Schools. In fact these were much more permanent institutions than those that we operate today. The brethren generally lived in very close-knit communities, usually because they were obliged to gather in a particular locality under the protection of some particular lord or landowner. There, as a community, they provided all their own food and education.
“The Bible Schools run by the Brethren provided not only sound teaching in God’s Word for young and old, but were often the only means that the children of members had of getting any kind of schooling” (p. 45).
A number of very detailed rules from the Moravian Bible School are quoted. The first quoted is this excellent advice:
“In everything the children, whether sick or well, shall form a unit, and fellowship shall be exercised with open heart, without vanity or selfishness” (quoted on p. 47).
It would hardly occur to us today that the Brotherhood might ever be responsible for all the education of the children of the members. Of course, we live in very different circumstances, and we have to abide by the laws of our age and country.
But it is a great mistake if we allow the educationalists of the world to take over totally the education of our children. They consistently instil philosophies into the minds of their charges that are diametrically opposed to Divine principles. We have a solemn duty to combat this in the home, and to expose the philosophies of the world as mere vanity. Let us always take good care to keep education in perspective, remembering God’s indictment on worldly education: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent” (1 Cor. 1:19).
In selecting extracts and themes to mention in a review like this, it is striking how often an issue or problem which exercised the minds of these believers 400 years ago is still a live issue amongst brethren today. A good example of this is a brief quotation from the pen of Pilgrim Marpeck (1495-1556), a mining engineer and town councillor from the Austrian Tyrol, who refused to persecute, and later joined, the brethren:
“We say that there are not two but only one word of God, and the word of divine evangelical preaching is truly the word of the Holy Spirit and of God, for the divine Holy Spirit has spoken through and out of the heart and mouth of the Apostles. The external word which is preached, or the word which the Apostles proclaimed, is the Word of God (1 Thess. 2:13). It is made power, spirit and life in the heart through faith; and thus the divine Holy Spirit is received” (quoted on p. 25).
As Brother Eyre observes, the context of the original quotation is a refutation of the idea that
“for us today illumination and conversion can come either through the Word of God or directly and independently by Holy Spirit inspiration, or both. Rather, he stresses, to believe and obey the Word of God is to receive God’s Spirit and be transformed” (p. 24).
This doctrinal statement is clearly very appropriate for Christadelphians in the 1980s.
Also remarkably relevant to our times is the understanding that these early brethren seem to have had of the Apocalypse. Brother Eyre has devoted 4 pages to this matter (pp. 53-57) which are commended to the reader. “The interpretation of the Apocalypse followed by John Thomas in Eureka, sometimes known as the ‘continuous historic’ approach, is based upon that of the 16th century Brethren in Christ” (p. 53).
This gives the lie to those contemporary brethren who, rejecting the continuous historic approach, claim that Brother Thomas merely ‘lifted’ the interpretation of certain orthodox theologians of his own era. Far from this being true, Brother Thomas was, as Brother Eyre shows, aware that there had been believers in the 16th century who had held largely identical views. He knew that they were particularly located in Austria, and that they had suffered intense persecution, but he never had access to the sort of material that Brother Eyre has now unearthed.
These were the forebears of Brother Thomas in his understanding of Revelation. Remarkably, as has been demonstrated before in The Testimony with regard to Isaac Newton, these brethren were able to assess accurately at what era in the Apocalyptic timetable they were living. They saw themselves as part at least of the “witnesses” of Revelation 11, now at the end of their witness, (A.D. 312-1572) and thus suffering persecution from the beast (the Emperor in Vienna) who made war against them (see Rev. 11:7).
This matches the exposition in Eureka where Brother Thomas sees one of the witnesses as believers in the Truth and the other as Protestants who did not hold the Truth but who were prepared to take the sword against Rome (see Eureka, vol. II, pp. 607-614, C.M.P.A. edn.).
Now Christadelphians today recognise that, perhaps above all else, that which marks us out as different from virtually every other denomination is the stress that we lay upon the promises to Abraham and David, and the hope of Israel. On this basis some have questioned whether or not these 16th century brethren really were true believers; for whilst their views on other doctrines do match ours, it is not always easy to establish their views on the hope of Israel. Brethren in Christ has indeed been criticised on this very point. But in fact Brother Alan Eyre has done us a great service with his research, and has been able to produce documentary evidence which shows that these brethren also believed in the promises to the fathers, and, like early Christadelphians, looked for a pre-adventual regathering of the Jews to the land of the patriarchs. Consider some examples.
One of the Polish brethren, in Bibliotheca Fratrum Polororum edited by Andrzej Wiszowaty, penned some Bible Class notes on Luke 21. Commenting on verse 25 and the signs in the sun, moon and stars, he wrote that
“After the times of the Gentiles have been fulfilled, then will begin their judgment . . . through which a way will be laid down for the liberation of natural as well as spiritual Israel” (quoted on p. 58).
Summarising his research into the writings of the Polish brethren Brother Eyre writes:
“It is apparent also that virtually every topic discussed in Christadelphian literature and magazines is to be found in these Polish Archives . . . Expositions abound on the Bible as the Word of God, inspiration, creation, the nature of the Godhead, God-manifestation, the Atonement, conversion, baptism, the kingdom of God, the true Hope of Israel, antichrist, sin, the mortality of man, resurrection, judgment, the Promises, the problem of military conscription, the Holy Spirit, the life in Christ” (p.87).
Nor was this topic confined to the believers in Poland. Samuel Hopkins (1721-1803), a New Englander, wrote that
“The revolutions which will take place, will open the way for their return to the Land given to their ancestors; and they which are left will repent and return to the Lord Jesus Christ, against whom they and their fathers have sinned, and unto their own Land and fill all that vast tract of land given to Abraham and his posterity, from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates” (quoted on p. 157).
Further still is this section of a remarkable passage quoted from an undated and anonymous tract published in London certainly no later than the very early 19th century:
“When God shall begin to deliver His people, they will be in a state of impenitence, and disposed rather to continue among the Gentiles and walk in their own ways than return to their own land and seek God. But the Almighty will so dispose the events of Providence, that they shall be put in motion towards their restoration; but, although God designs their ultimate good, as a nation, yet they shall be conducted through such scenes of suffering that most of those, on whom God’s dealings do not work good, shall perish.
“The beginnings of their return will be when they are in their sins, and take place from causes separate from their inclination. They will be put in motion by others, the fishers and hunters, whom God will send, rather than by any impulse, or causes, originating among themselves” (quoted on pp. 160 and 162).
These words could almost be an extract from Elpis Israel.
Brethren in Christ is one of those rare books that is compulsive reading, and is almost all quotable in a review. But obviously there are limits, and beyond those the reviewer can only heartily commend the book to his readers, which indeed I do. One other point does, however, deserve a mention by way of conclusion. Possibly the most moving aspect of Brother Eyre’s work is the record of men and women who, from the point of view of doctrine, ecclesial organisation and way of life, may be said to have been ‘in fellowship’ with us, and who patiently and faithfully endured persecution, torture and death, the like of which virtually all who read these words have never known. These examples of faith provoke intimate heart-searching and provide stirring exhortation for their steadfastness in the face of hatred and cruelty. Consider the Czech Brother Hans Hut, arrested and imprisoned. He escaped and was then arrested again in Augsburg while attending a mission conference there. He
“was tortured on the rack,then taken to his cell unconscious. A candle left by his side blew over and his straw ‘bed’ caught alight. By the time the warders arrived, Hut was dead. Defrauded of the fun of a trial, his corpse was tied to a chair, taken to court, condemned to ‘death’ and then burned at the stake” (p. 47).
“There could be no half-hearted believers in those days. Their conscience had to have been marked by the Son of God in the Word and branded by its fire. There could be no other way” p. 165).
“Of whom the world was not worthy . . . God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect” (Heb. 11:38,40).
Review of “The Early Earth” by John Whitcomb (1972)