Georg Balthasar

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Georg Balthasar (* in Bohemia ; † August 14, 1629 in Prague , also written George Balthasar , Jiřík Baltazar in Czech ), was a Bohemian farmer and lay preacher . He is considered an evangelical martyr .

Life

What is known about the life of Georg Balthasar before the year of his death is only what he said in his letter of defense mentioned below. He was a farmer by profession and lived in the village of Tmáň belonging to Zlonice under the rule of Baron Bohuchwal (Gottlob) Walkaun von Adlar (Bohuchval Valkoun z Adlaru in Czech). Balthasar was considered illiterate.

Walkaun, who had turned away from the evangelical faith together with his subordinates some time beforehand, probably to avoid reprisals, sued Balthasar in writing to the Schlaner Council via Jacob Schwojanow as a rebel. So Balthasar was arrested on May 5, 1629 together with 21 other farmers in Zlonice and brought to Schlan ( Slaný in Czech ). They are said to have sung Easter carols. They were accused of having converted from the faith of the Bohemian Brethren in connection with an appropriate oath to the Roman Catholic Church, but having now relapsed and celebrated services without the authorization of the Church. In Schlan, they were distributed to different prisons and questioned in different ways. Balthazar was seen as their leader and brought to justice. The charge was unauthorized preaching and administering the sacrament . Walkaun's letter was read to him by a lawyer. He asked for a respite so that he could defend himself in writing in Czech with the help of a scribe.

In this pamphlet he stated that he had only been brought to convert to the Roman Catholic Church by a severe prison sentence and a lack of trust in God. For a year he suffered from the idea that God would punish him forever for it and during this time prayed for forgiveness with tears. An angel appeared to him and the Holy Spirit gave him the new birth and the gift to distinguish right from wrong and to act and speak accordingly. He was also commissioned to preach penance. Walkaun had forbidden him to follow this mandate, but after that God had encouraged him to preach for four years, even in the Zlonice Castle in front of Walkaun for three days (Friday to Sunday). Three clergymen demanded a divine sign from him. On the last day he had a book with him when he gave his penitential sermon. Walkaun called him a seducer of the soul, but he insisted on his divine mission. Nobody was in a position to snatch the book from him, which Balthasar interpreted as the required sign. He cried over the impentiveness of those present. He sees his attitude confirmed, however, since the world has always persecuted divine truth and its witnesses. Balthasar concluded his writing with a renewed call to repentance, the threat of future divine punishment and the words "In the meantime, the grace of our Lord God be with us all. Amen!" from.

At first the court tried to lead him back to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church with the help of the local pastor and some specially arrived Jesuits ; these were the only visitors allowed to see him. But Balthasar resisted these attempts at conversion with great eloquence and said that although he was a layman and illiterate, the content of his previous and future sermons was inspired by the Holy Spirit himself. Furthermore, he reminded again of the troubles of conscience that he had to endure after his official departure from the evangelical doctrine and that he had been redeemed from it through the wounds of Christ. He affirmed that Christ himself had called him to his four years as penitential preacher, which he wanted to continue. For him, a death sentence would only be a consequence of the impunity of his judges, he was ready to be martyred for the glory of Christ. He also testified that the Holy Spirit revealed tremendous things to him in prison that he could not speak about and that Christ himself would protect him. The sermons he had previously given in public were of similar content. The evangelical doctrine of the Lord's Supper and the uniqueness of Christ as mediator he founded biblically; his reasoning testified to a good knowledge of the Bible. He also threatened the persecutors of the evangelical faith and the Roman Catholic clergy with God's punishment and predicted the reorganization of the torn evangelical church.

On August 10, 1629 Georg Balthasar was brought to Prague. He was sentenced to death because his firm intention to continue spreading the evangelical faith was unmistakable.

The sentence was carried out by beheading on August 14, 1629 before sunrise at the gates of the city near the gallows, without the population having been informed beforehand. This procedure was later interpreted in such a way that it was supposed to be prevented that Balthasar could agitate against the Roman Catholic Church shortly before his execution. After that, his body was quartered . The body parts were displayed on public roads as a deterrent.

Alleged prophecies, punishments and signs

Georg Balthasar had declared before his death that the persecutors of God's people would face their judgment in this world and that the scattered flock of Christ would be gathered again. The persecuted Bohemian Brethren reported incidents which, in their opinion, had fulfilled the first part of this prediction through remarkable divine punishments against leading persecutors.

They also reported extraordinary signs such as celestial phenomena and the like, which supposedly had occurred in Bohemia during this time of their distress. It is probably not surprising that members of a persecuted minority saw omens and omens in simple natural phenomena at that time. For example, it seems that a remarkable outbreak of thunderbolts occurred exactly on the day when some executions of Evangelical Christians took place in Prague, and an extraordinary hailstorm on the day of a solemn Corpus Christi procession on Kunzenberg just a short time later. There were strange stories of blood wells and similar miracles, possibly due to an overexcited imagination of the reporters.

Some of the apostates were reported to have fallen into a frenzy after they turned away, others are said to have suffered seizures similar to epilepsy , and other similar reports were added.

reception

Johann Henrich Reitz saw Georg Balthasar as an example of the fact that religious knowledge learned from books was of a purely secular nature and prevented the true knowledge of God, as it was bestowed upon the uneducated Georg Balthasar, and therefore added to the report in his History of the Boredings, published in 1726 wrote a corresponding poem about Balthasar, the original author of which is unknown.

The poem can also be found without reference to Balthasar as a folk song text under the title Werd 'ein Kind in Achim von Arnim's first volume of the song collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn , published in 1805 , so that it is sometimes incorrectly attributed by Arnim.

Both versions are shown below:

Text in the history of the re-drilled Text in Des Knaben Wunderhorn

To the conclusion and repetition / that the godly scholarship
grasped by people and from books / that is only one world = wisdom and philosophy / inflates
and prevents true godly scholarship / so we put here:

1. You must be
small and poor in
heart and mouth / When should Christ
go up in your bottom:
For the rose and viol
grow in the valley of the lower souls /
Who choose nothing high here!

2.
If only you may be as humble
as the nidre Sarons = Blum /
And accordingly stand respectfully
And stooped before God = crooked:
So you should soon have the gifts of
His Spirit in you.

3. But
when does
your wisdom stain you high, proud wit;
Than hiding from you
True truth clear lightning:
When the letter caught you /
Can't you get to the spirit.

4.
Become a child / become poor and small /
do not be high nor do you know;
Sit in the dust / and weyne /
bite God lead you to school /
Since his spirit
teaches the poor and stupid whitish to speak of him.



Become a child.
History of the Born Again. 1742. p. 18. You must be

small and poor in
heart and mouth , if Christ is to rise
up in your bottom:
For the rose and viol
grow in the valley of the lower souls /
who choose nothing high here!


May you only be so humble,
like the lowly Sarons Blum,
Still standing deferentially
And crouched before God:
So may you soon have the gifts of
His Spirit in you.


But when
your wisdom stains you high, proud wit,
then hides from you.
True truth, clear lightning:
If the letter
catches you, you cannot reach the spirit.


Become a child, become poor and little,
do not be high or wise with you,
sit in the dust and white,
until God leads you to school, when
his spirit
teaches the poor and stupid to speak wisely of him.

Remembrance day

August 14 in the Evangelical Name Calendar .

An initially unofficial day of remembrance for Georg Balthasar was introduced by Jörg Erb for his book Die Wolke der Zeugen (Kassel 1951/1963, Vol. 4, Calendar on pp. 508-520). The Evangelical Church in Germany took over in 1969, this Memorial Day in the then established name calendar since he has official character.

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personal data
SURNAME Balthasar, Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Balthasar, George; Baltazar, Jiřík
BRIEF DESCRIPTION evangelical martyr
DATE OF BIRTH 16th century or 17th century
PLACE OF BIRTH Bohemia
DATE OF DEATH August 14, 1629
Place of death Prague