English Translation

V P. Antonín Koniáš (169l-1760). Father Antonín K o n i á š, also called Koňas (a mockery on horseback), was Jesuit writer and literary leader of the Counter-Reformation in Bohemia. Born in Prague in 1969 as the son of a book printer, died on 27 October 1760 in Prague. He worked in various places in Bohemia, the longest and most sustainable in Königgrätz. In his sermons and on his Bohemian-Moravian missionary journeys, he distinguished himself with fanatical zeal. In 1708 he joined the Order of the Society of Jesus, after which he had previously obtained the Magisterium of Philosophy. In the Order he provided the Magistrate in the smaller schools, and later the Ministry in 8 years. In spite of this, he worked for 34 years as a missionary in Bohemia and Moravia, breaking all the bones and diseases that often plagued him. As a test of his zeal, it should only be noted that he often preached four or five times in German and Czech language on one day; he worked so hard that he had to be carried home by the pulpit, not infrequently. His eloquence is described as ravishing and his listeners are said to have often burst into loud sobs, so that he had to pause in the sermon. When he preached of the youngest court, he appeared with a chain around his neck on the pulpit. He is said to have described the torments of hell and purgatory so vividly and appallingly that his biographer Pelzel reports: to have known people who have lost their minds as a result of it! The extermination of Hussite books was especially dear to him. Where he came to preach, he obliged the people under the mortal sin to bring him all the books that were somewhere for inspection. He then kept the suspicious and offensive ones back and handed them over to the flames. In this way, K. is said to have burned no less than 60,oo0 volumes. His biographer also reports that he had a special skill in detecting the libraries of the Hussites and that, despite all the dangers, he continued his work of destruction.