Márton SZENTPÉTERI, The Theory of Cognition in Transylvania (1629–1658): The Herborn Tradition and the Influence of Dutch Cartesianism

This paper compares the two models of the theory of cognition established by the Herborn encyclopaedists and by their successor in Transylvania, János Apáczai Csere. I claim that the major difference between the considerations of the Herborners and those of Apáczai Csere lies in the modest and gradual separation of the realms of faith and reason. Whereas Johann Heinrich Alsted, Johann Heinrich Bisterfeld, Jan Amos Comenius, and Apáczai Csere’s first master, András Porcsalmi, based their theories of cognition on the three interrelated foundations of experience, right reason, and the Holy Writ in a typically Trinitarian fashion, Apáczai Csere gradually adopted the Cartesian use of the exegetical principle of accommodation, which separates knowledge deriving from the Bible and the book of nature. It is highly possible that one of the major sources to catalyse Apáczai Csere’s interest in this issue was an anonymous book published in the Netherlands and devoted to Copernicanism. Apáczai Csere’s Cartesianism should not be overestimated, however. In his late Philosophia naturalis, typical of the eclecticism of the second and third Post-Ramist generations, Apáczai Csere happily combines theories taken from Cartesians with notions reminiscent of William Ames and the moral principles of Protestant scholasticism so familiar to Alsted and the other Herborners.

Keywords
Theory of cognition; Herborn tradition; Trinitarianism; Cartesianism; Minimalistic view of accommodation

Kateřina ŠOLCOVÁ, Conceptions of the Vacuum in the Seventeenth-Century Czech Lands

The article presents the debates on the vacuum held by seventeenth-century Bohemia-based scholars, at the centre of which stood the traditional Aristotelian doctrine of the impossibility of an extended vacuum. The first, a Capuchin of Italian origin who received his habit in the monastery in Prague, Valerian Magni (1586–1661), conducted an experiment (1647) to prove the real existence of a vacuum, which he further promoted as a serious anti-Aristotelian argument. The Spanish Jesuit Rodrigo de Arriaga (1592–1667), who was teaching in Prague, sought to defend and deepen Aristotle’s teaching using the Jesuit concept of imaginary space. His contemporary Prague professor of medicine, Johannes Marcus Marci of Kronland (1595–1667), largely agreed but, unlike Arriaga, rejected even the logical possibility of a vacuum, trying to resolve the consequences that would result from the annihilation of bodies under these conditions. J. A. Comenius (1592–1670) also followed the Aristotelian teaching on the impossibility of the vacuum and adopted the thesis into his metaphysical system, which became the starting point for his further pansophical, ethical, and didactic work. The approaches of these scholars represent a diverse range of opinions reflecting the broader early modern tendencies that eventually led to the downfall of Aristotelian scholasticism.

Keywords
Vacuum; Aristotelian natural philosophy; Valerian Magni; Rodrigo de Arriaga; Marcus Marci; Jan Amos Comenius

Lucie STORCHOVÁ, Labia tua maledicentiae et calumniae igne calent: Humanist Polemics and Invectives at the University of Prague from 1610 to 1620

This study deals with three disputes led by the humanist scholars related to the University of Prague between 1600 and 1620. Being part of a broader contemporary ‘culture of contention’, these polemics were conducted either in Latin or in the vernacular, thereby enabling a comparison of the topics, stylistic devices and registers of expression which were employed in humanist invectives. Several Latin polemical texts were written in connection with the university’s dispute with Johannes Matthias a Sudetis from 1614 to 1617. His De origine Bohemorum et Slavorum was not only an attempt at a novel historical interpretation; it became the catalyst for a dispute in which university scholars (Nicolaus Troilus, Georgius Schultissius, Nicolaus Albertus etc.) commented on more general issues related primarily to the concept of patria and the functioning of the academic community. The study includes a scholarly edition of Troilus’ polemical Neo-Latin treatise Antiroxolania based on a unique exemplar housed in Syracuse University Libraries. This dispute is compared with two other scholarly controversies from the same period. Exclusively in Latin, another controversy with the university masters was conducted by Paulus Gisbicius, an original and productive poet. Illustrating a different register and the possibilities of the polemical style in the vernacular, one rarely documented scholarly controversy conducted in Czech concerned the marriage of priests and took place between the Utraquist priest Adam Klemens and the Jesuit Vojtěch Scipio Berlička.

Keywords
Bohemian lands; Neo-Latin literature; University of Prague; Polemics; Invective; Nicolaus Troilus; Antiroxolania; Edition

Vojtěch HLADKÝ, Kepler on Patrizi, Ancient Wisdom, and Astronomical Hypotheses

This study offers a detailed and comprehensive comparison of certain ideas of Francesco Patrizi and Johannes Kepler. They wrote in the late 16th and early 17th century, at a point when the previously dominant Aristotelean cosmology was crumbling and although they shared some important concepts and presuppositions, they reacted to this situation in different ways. Kepler confronted Patrizi most notably in his Contra Ursum, a work written after he was asked to defend Brahe. Patrizi unjustly accused him of preserving the idea of celestial spheres. Kepler used this opportunity to launch a broader attack on Patrizi and his denial of the validity and utility of astronomical hypotheses. He also rejected Patrizi’s concept of planets as living beings that move in the space according to their will and claimed that astronomers must instead focus on search for mathematical laws that would explain their motion. But Kepler also made use of Patrizi’s Nova de universis philosophia when discussing the history of astronomy. In contrast to Patrizi, who accepted the arrangement of planets proposed in the Corpus Hermeticum, Kepler ascribed a key role to the ancient Pythagoreans and to the heliocentrism of Philolaus and Aristarchus of Samos. One can conclude that the Platonic tradition, especially Proclus, formed the background of both Patrizi’s and Kepler’s thoughts, but they adapted it each to his own purposes. Patrizi focused on the spontaneity of individual souls of celestial objects, while Kepler emphasised the general order of the world where the universal animation of the cosmos and magnetic force responsible for planetary motions were assigned key roles.

Keywords
Johannes Kepler; Francesco Patrizi; Renaissance Platonism; Renaissance cosmology; Astronomical hypotheses; History of astronomy; Ancient wisdom; Pythagoreanism

Lenka ŘEZNÍKOVÁ, Theatrum Historiae: The Metaphors of J. A. Comenius’ Historical Theory and Narration and Their Empirical Context

This study focuses on several metaphors used by Comenius when discussing history. Its aim is not only to analyse what these metaphors reveal about history but also what they reveal about their source domains. The first part discusses Comenius’ theory of metaphor. Unlike many noted critics who have dismissed metaphor for its susceptibility to inaccuracies, Comenius advises caution when using this linguistic tool but does not reject it ultimately as a means of literary communication. As a theologian, he values highly the metaphorical language of the Bible and its explicatory power. In his rhetorical and philological texts, he adheres to the classical substitution theory of metaphor. However, several (and particularly) Pansophic texts bring up its cognitive potential. The second part moves from Comenius’ theory to his practice in his historical and metahistorical writings. While in his historical writings he includes common narrative metaphors, in his metahistorical texts he applies conceptual metaphors that help him to grasp his ideas about the nature and properties of history and historical processes. Coming from the domain of theatre, astrology, theory of vision, optics, and the physics of light, these metaphors present history as something that could be seen and physically experienced. The source domains from which Comenius derives his metaphors refer to key empirical principles dominating seventeenth-century epistemology. Creating these metaphors, history came into lexical proximity with natural philosophy and the discourse of the natural sciences.

Keywords
Johannes Amos Comenius; Metaphors; History of historiography 17^th century; Intelectually history; Early modern cultures of knowledge; Theatre; Light

Jan MALURA, How to Tell the Story of a Crisis? Three Historiographic Accounts of the Estates Revolt and the Bohemian War

This study investigates the narrative techniques and poetics of historiographic texts from the 16^th and 17^th centuries. It analyzes how historiographic narratives represent crises and calamities, focusing specifically on the Estates Revolt and the Bohemian (or Bohemian and Palatinate) War (1617–1624). It explores narrative perspective, textual coherence and intertextuality, showing how the narrative selects elements from historical happenings, uses live-action descriptions, inserts narrative commentaries, and draws on the authority of eyewitness accounts. The analysis focuses on three works: Paměti (Memoirs) by Mikuláš Dačický z Heslova, Historie církevní (History of the Church) by Pavel Skála ze Zhoře, and the German-language autobiography Raiszbuch und Leben by Jindřich Hýzrle z Chodů. The study shows that historical narratives about the Bohemian crisis use various narrative techniques which are primarily influenced by the differing generic character of the historical works. Among the features shared by all the investigated texts is the fact that the individual stories are presented in the form of empirically rich narratives focusing mainly on specific events. The analyzed works neither make substantial use of universal narratives nor combine stories to create integrated narrative configurations, and only occasionally do they engage in theological and/or political speculations regarding the changing world and crisis situations. For historians of that time, the authority of eyewitnesses was a key principle in narrative practice; this was reflected not only in the authors’ attempts to present their own personal experience, having been direct observers of the narrated events, but also in their tendency to excerpt and reword narratives from other sources, especially news leaflets, whose representations of events contained a wealth of specific information and descriptive details.

Keywords
Early Modern historiography; Narrative techniques; Poetics of historiographic texts; the Bohemian War; Mikuláš Dačický z Heslova; Pavel Skála ze Zhoře; Jindřich Hýzrle z Chodů

Réka ÚJLAKI-NAGY, Passover and Identity Formation among the Early Transylvanian Sabbatarians, 1580–16211

The Transylvanian Sabbatarians were a Hungarian-speaking religious community formed in the 1580s who were part of the Antitrinitarian tendencies of the Reformation in Transylvania. Taking the reforming and purifying efforts of the Christian Church as their point of departure, they returned to Judaism and its religious practices. They sought to find a way to be both a true Christian and a clear-sighted Jew. The attempt to reconcile the two world religions was most visibly demonstrated in their religious practices, most notably in the most confrontational area of their religious practice, the Passover celebration. It is no coincidence that in the Transylvanian Sabbatarian liturgical texts written for Passover in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the issue of identity was heavily thematised, since this feast was central to the identity of both Christianity and Judaism. This paper analyses the Sabbatarians’ confrontation with the question of affinity in the matter of Passover and considers its implications, in particular for the expression of their identity. The Sabbatarian Passover emerges from this analysis as a unique fusion of Christian and Jewish practices in eschatology and ritual and also of Seder and the Lord’s Supper. There were significant endeavours to re-Judaize the holiday and to discover and reinterpret its original historical context while retaining certain Christian elements, such as the eligibility to participate. The most problematic link in the chain between the holidays celebrated by the two religions was Jesus as the Messiah. The alleged discovery of Messianism in the ritual and symbolism of the Jewish holiday helped the Sabbatarians find their place, despite being Gentiles, in the narrative of the Jewish celebration and remembrance and to find reassurance for the future resolution of their problem of identity. In its extreme historicism, Sabbatarianism is a good example of the “radical” Reformation, but it went well beyond other radical groups in its intention to return to Jewish practices.

Keywords
Sabbatarianism; Passover; Lord’s Supper; Afikoman; Re-Judaization; Messianism

Zdeněk ŽALUD – Magda KRÁLOVÁ, ´Lutheran Lourdes´: The Healing Springs of Hornhausen in Two Bohemian Sources from 1646. Supplemented by a Critical Edition of a Letter by Jan Marek Marci

The appearance of new healing springs in Hornhausen, Saxony, in the spring of 1646 became an event of European significance. Within a few weeks, the insignificant village was attracting crowds of pilgrims of various nationalities and social strata. This article introduces this phenomenon in the context of different modes of interpretation of healing springs. The fact that “Lutheran Lourdes” captured the attention of not only Protestants but also of Catholic aristocrats is  documented by references to Hornhausen in a diary written by cardinal Ernst Adalbert of Harrach in Prague. Even the most famous Bohemian naturalist and physician of the 17^th century, Jan Marek Marci of Kronland, turned his attention to Saxon springs and described the experience and impressions of his stay in Hornhausen in a letter to an unknown addressee. In addition to a paraphrase of the key passages of these two sources and their comparison with other contemporary textual and visual material, this study includes a critical edition of Marci’s letter and a few notes on its textual history.

Keywords
Healing springs; Hornhausen; Jan Marek Marci of Kronland; Correspondence; Ernst Adalbert of Harrach; Friedrich Salchmann

Nicolette MOUT, Honouring Comenius in the Netherlands: The Scholarly Commemorations of 1892, 1970, and 1992

In the Netherlands, modern scholarly commemorations of Comenius’ life and work have occurred three times, in 1892, 1970, and 1992. In all three cases politics played a role. The first was for the greater part organized by Protestant, mainly Mennonite, professors and ministers of the church in Amsterdam and Naarden. Comparisons between the Dutch Revolt in the sixteenth century, leading to freedom, and Habsburg oppression in Bohemia played a role, as well as the fate of Comenius as an exile. Furthermore, the symposium of 1970, again taking place both in Amsterdam and Naarden, saw freedom and tolerance as important topics. The fact that a number of Czech and Slovak invitees were barred from attending in an atmosphere of “normalization” after the Warsaw Pact aggression in Czechoslovakia in August 1968 overshadowed the symposium and its aftermath. The colloquium of 1992, in Naarden and Amsterdam, hailed the newly acquired democracy in Czechoslovakia. It celebrated Comenius’ ecumenical and democratic ideas whilst stressing his place in European culture and the importance of his work as an educationalist. The commemoration of 1992 differed from the two earlier ones by starting with a grand public ceremony in Naarden, with many high-ranking personalities from the Netherlands and Czechoslovakia present. In all three commemorations, Comenius was honoured for his work as an educationalist, a religious leader, and a theologian.

Keywords
Dutch scholarly commemorations; Protestantism; Freedom; Democracy; Comenius scholars; Comenius and European culture

Petr PAVLAS, ´Eruditio semper reformanda´: Discussing and Ref lecting on Howard Hotson’s New Book

Like a tripod, this review article is “three-legged”, having three partial objectives. First, it provides a concise companion to the book under review. Second, it presents a critical reflection upon those elements of Hotson’s story which the reviewer finds particularly thought-provoking or controversial. Third, at the very end (Conclusion: Towards a History of Hope), the reviewer dares to add somewhat more personal ruminations and speculative contemplations regarding a historiography of and for the future.

Keywords
Howard Hotson; Philosophical pedagogy; Early modern history; Central Europe; Reformation; post-Ramism; Encyclopaedism; Hope

Simon J. G. BURTON, Pansophic Mirrors of the Soul: Comenius, Pinder and the Transformation of Cusan Optics

By his own account Jan Amos Comenius discovered the works of Nicholas of Cusa through his reading of the Speculum intellectuale felicitatis of the Nuremberg humanist Ulrich Pinder. However, while Cusa's influence on Comenius is well known, that of Pinder remains unconsidered. Indeed, Pinder has been mined simply as a Cusan source and not considered as a Comenian influence in his own right. Yet Pinder's skilful compiling places Cusan conceptualities in new frames and alongside different figures (e.g. Bonaventure, Peter of Limoges, Pico, Baptista Mantuanus) offering a profound interpretative lens through which to view the fifteenth-century German Cardinal. Placing Comenius' reading of Pinder in the wider context of the Neo-Platonic metaphysics of light this paper investigates his reception of optical metaphors of knowledge (eye, mirror, glasses etc) considering the Speculum as a prototype for the Panaugia and Pansophia.

Keywords
Jan Amos Comenius; Ulrich Pinder; Nicholas of Cusa; Bonaventure; Metaphysics of Light; Contuition

Marcela SLAVÍKOVÁ, Vir non vulgari e loquentia: Joachim Hübner's Elegance of Expression

This paper discusses the Latin style of Joachim Hübner (1611–1666), an important member of the Hartlib circle whom his colleagues valued for his elegance of expression in Latin. Only his letters have survived, among which the 1638–1640 Latin correspondence with Johannes Amos Comenius excels in length and refinement. It appears that in order to achieve such elegance of expression, not only did Hübner use rhetorical devices such as elaborate metaphors and syntax, but that he also employed advanced vocabulary (e.g., expressive, technical, rare and Greek words) which he would hardly have encountered in the usual school curriculum. Careful analysis of Hübner's vocabulary has revealed his sources: besides a thorough knowledge of Cicero's phraseology, Hübner knew Erasmus's Adagia in detail and it is also apparent that he was particularly skilled in the language that was fashionable in contemporary learned correspondence. However, due to Hübner's tendency to overuse rhetorical devices and unusual vocabulary, his style is ostentatious and at times complex to the point of obscurity.

Keywords
Joachim Hübner; Early modern correpondence in Latin; Elegant Latin style; the Hartlib circle; Latin collocations and idioms; Expressive and technical Latin vocabulary

Lyke de VRIES, An Early Modern Proto-Feminist Story? The Innovative Programme of a Utopian Sorority

This paper studies a pseudonymous text about an intellectual sorority entitled Frawenzimmer der Schwesteren des Rosinfarben Creutzes (A Sorority of the Sisters of the Rose-Coloured Cross, 1620). The author of the text – under the female name of Famaugusta – juxtaposes this fictional women's society with the Rosicrucians. The women lived on a ship that travelled the oceans. Aware of the dramatic political and religious landscape of the time, they devoted themselves to religious piety. They had access to secrets of nature, mastered various arts and sciences, progressed science and invented various devices. This paper studies the proto-feminist and utopian character of the text, analyses its authorship and considers its relationship with Rosicrucian manifestos.

Keywords
Utopian stories; Women's society; Rosicrucianism; Early modern proto-feminism

Ulrich SCHÄFER, Neu entdeckte Autographen in zwei Exemplaren der Opera didactica omnia von Johann Amos Comenius aus dem Jahr 1657

The article deals with the following two autographs: 1. A dedication which accompanied a copy given by Comenius to the Hohe Schule in Herborn, where he was a student from 1611 until 1613. This copy came later into the library of the Gymnasium Philippinum in Weilburg an der Lahn. 2. A handwritten entry by the owner, Petrus Colbovius, in the copy now to be found in the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt in Halle/Saale. This states that he received this book as a present from Johann Amos Comenius. Facsimile reproductions, transcriptions, and translations of the autographs are added. Furthermore, hitherto information about Petrus Colbovius is presented.

Keywords
Autographs; Johannes Amos Comenius; Opera didactica omnia; Petrus Colbovius

Věra SCHIFFEROVÁ, Reflections on Jan Čížek's Book Comenius and Bacon: Two Early Modern Pathways to the Restoration of Knowledge

This review article discusses the monograph by Jan Čížek that deals with the conception of the restoration of knowledge in Francis Bacon and Johannes Amos Comenius. The reviewer points to Patočka's and Schaller's contributions to the topic, contributions which Čížek mentions only marginally or omits altogether. This may be considered a flaw in Čížek's work since Patočka's and Schaller's studies are not only comparative analyses but contribute to the interpretation of the spiritual foundations of modern European civilisation, so the monograph should have discussed them, albeit critically. The review article further deals with conceptually important problems in Čížek's book. First of all, this regards the issue of the methodological approach to Bacon and Comenius. The reviewer values Čížek's rejection of the ahistorical approach to Bacon and Comenius, which distorts the authentic nature of their thought. At the same time, however, she supposes that the relationship between historical and presentist perspectives is far more complex and she calls for a broader discussion of this topic, taking into consideration the opinions of different authors (e.g. Leibniz, Gadamer, Gilson). The second issue discussed is the question of a common theological motivation driving both Bacon and Comenius. Čížek repeatedly points out that both thinkers found support for their projects of knowledge improvement in the Book of Daniel (Da 12:4). The reviewer supposes that Čížek could also have analysed other biblical passages Comenius used for his pansophia. He could have dealt too with the metaphysical background of Comenius's pansophia. This would have shown more clearly what is different in Comenius when comparing him with Bacon, most notably the main characteristics of pansophia. Thirdly, the reviewer devotes attention to the concept of human affairs (res humanae). Čížek claims that this concept stems from Bacon. The reviewer points to the inspiration provided to Comenius by Augustinian and Campanellian sources and conjectures that Comenius's concept of human affairs grew simultaneously out of several intellectual traditions.

Keywords
Francis Bacon; Johannes Amos Comenius; Restoration of Knowledge; Methodological Questions

Martin ŠKÁRA, The Way to the Second Labyrinth
G. W. Leibniz, Pacidius Philalethi – Pacidius Philalethovi, ed. and transl. Jan Makovský, Praha, OIKOYMENH, 2019, 341 pp., ISBN 978-80-7298-517-3.

This review article seeks to analytically capture the main pillars of the first Czech-Latin edition of Leibniz's Pacidius Philalethi dialogue. The structure of this article directly mirrors the structure of the work in question, which consists of two parts: (I) a bilingual edition of Leibniz's dialogue Pacidius Philalethi, and (II) an interpretive study of the dialogue by its editor and translator, Jan Makovský. In the case of Leibniz, inquiring into the concept of motion becomes an inquiry into its metaphysical ground. The elaboration of the problem of motion is thus guided in the dialogue more Socratico through posing the question itself, its subsequent anchoring in the labyrinth of the continuum, and in an ascension to God through which the concept of movement acquires its new name: transcreation. The Czech editor, translator and interpreter is fully aware of the seriousness of Leibniz's solution and, for this reason, he also attaches to his precise translation an interpretive study which is analysed and confronted in this review article.

Keywords
Motion; Labyrinth; Continuum; Transcreation; God

Gábor ALMÁSI, The Familiar Style of Latin Humanist Correspondence: The Case of Johannes Sambucus (1531–1584)

This article provides an introduction to the history of the familiar letter along with a case study of Johannes Sambucus's correspondence. It compares the Latin to the vernacular familiar letter in the sixteenth century, stressing their parallel development and mutual influence and the difficulties of achieving the level of privacy, naturalness, spontaneity and directness that was typically expected of a "conversation halved", i.e. the familiar letter. Although in theory the use of the vernacular enabled the letter writer to be more playful and spontaneous, in reality, learned correspondence remained self-reflective and the feel of spontaneity had to be reinvented both in Latin and the vernacular. The great advantage of Latin over vernacular letters – and this is the main thesis of this article – was their increased potential for networking, especially when it came to connecting men of different social standing on the basis of collegiality and in the name of meritocratic values. As his correspondence makes abundantly clear, Sambucus was a master at addressing social or intellectual superiors within these terms. His letters created and maintained an ethos of equality – founded on shared culture and learned interests – which was the fundamental fuel that kept the Republic of Letters alive.

Keywords
Latin; Familiar letter; Republic of Letters; Networking

Kristi VIIDING, Rhetorical Strategies in the Correspondence between Johannes Caselius and the Livonian Humanist David Hilchen

This case study of the correspondence between the German humanist Johannes Caselius and Livonian humanist David Hilchen (1577–1610) demonstrates the decisive importance of rhetorical strategies in humanist correspondence around the turn of the 17^th century. These strategies clearly depended on the social positions, ages and occupations of the correspondents, and they changed constantly, especially in long-running correspondences. The older correspondent initially reflected on his younger counterpart's deeds, adapting the style and rhetoric of his letters to the level of his younger partner, that is, the level of school rhetoric or progymnasmata. In letters to the almost adult correspondent, the use of rhetorical devices increased while the syntax became more complicated and the rhetorical figures more variable. After long disruptions to the correspondence, and particularly where this was due to changes in the political or social position of one of the correspondents, new rhetorical strategies were standard.

Keywords
Johannes Caselius; David Hilchen; Early Modern Epistolography; Postal Routes;
Eastern Europe; Germany

Marta VACULÍNOVÁ, The Learned Correspondence between Early Modern Oriental Scholars: The Case of Christoph Crinesius and Sebastian Tengnagel

Originating in Horní Slavkov (Schlaggenwald) in West Bohemia, Christoph Crinesius (1583–1629) belonged to a close-knit group of experts on Oriental languages. The small collection of his surviving letters to Sebastian Tengnagel, a librarian at the Viennese court library, begins during Crinesius's studies at the university in Wittenberg where he later worked as a lecturer. This fragmentary correspondence not only reveals new facts about Crinesius's life but also tracks his search for employment that would enable him to continue his studies of Oriental languages. Among other things, the letters bear witness to the rarely highlighted trend of Lutheran intellectuals from West Bohemia seeking financial support and employment in Austria.

Keywords
Christoph Crinesius; Sebastian Tengnagel; Oriental Studies; Early Modern Communication; Correspondence

Kaidi KRIISA, Multilingual Practices in the Texts of Friedrich Menius, the First Professor of History and Antiquities at the Early Modern University of Dorpat (Academia Gustaviana)

Friedrich Menius (1593/1594–1659), a German humanist, historian and hermeticist who called himself "Mercury" because of (1) his permanent exile from Germany to what is today Latvia and then to the provincial town of Dorpat in northern Livonia and later Sweden and (2) his self-identification as a deliverer of education and literature to barbaric Eastern Europe, can surely be considered one of the most productive and distinguished professors at the early modern University of Dorpat. Within a short period in Dorpat, he produced more texts than some scholars do in a lifetime. Not only was he aware of his own knowledge and wisdom, but he liked to share this awareness, praising himself in poems that were meant to be addressed to others (as in the case of one of his entries in an album amicorum), and thus, also demonstrating his multifaceted linguistic performance and skills. Both inter- and intrasentential code-switching can be seen in Menius's various multilingual texts where the approach taken depends mostly on whether the item was a printed or handwritten text. Insertions, alternations and congruent lexicalisation (in Muysken's terms) also abounded in his multilingual writings, clearly indicating that while Menius was a rather ordinary scholar for his era, in the context of the seventeenth century University of Dorpat, he was one of the first professors to use multilingual practices in both communication
and education.

Keywords
Friedrich Menius; Multilingual Practices; Code-Switching; Alternation; Insertion; Congruent Lexicalisation

Lucie STORCHOVÁ, Building Bonds of Scholarly Love: Changing Rhetorical Strategies in Comenius's Correspondence during the 1630s

The article deals with changes in the epistolary style of Jan Amos Comenius during the 1630s – the period in which Comenius expanded his epistolary networks and became an important figure in the Republic of Letters of that time. The author analyses how Comenius fashioned himself and how he changed his rhetorical strategies when approaching various groups of scholars (German educational refomers, the Hartlib circle and his confessional enemies). Comenius was concise, firm and self-confident in his correspondence with German educational reformers. When it came to his confessional opponents, however, he did not hesitate to employ harshly defamatory and mocking rhetoric. Special attention is paid to the emotional codes and language of scholarly love which Comenius used in his communication with Samuel Hartlib from 1634 onwards. The author shows that these usages related both to an idea of non-utilitarian friendship and mutual love between scholars and to strategies for acquiring financial support. Comenius adopted only some aspects of emotional language during the 1630s. These were likely those parts which were moderate enough to be reconciled with his religious identity and self-fashioning. Instead of developing a specific discourse of male intimacy or a homoerotic vocabulary, he adopted elements of the epistolary rhetoric shared by Hartlib and his collaborators. His emotional codes belonged to a learned practice of letter-writing that Comenius mastered by reading and imitating letters circulated within the Hartlib circle.

Keywords
Learned correspondence; Neo-Latin; Pansophy; Love; Friendship; Self-fashioning; Rhetoric; Homosocial; Jan Amos Comenius; Samuel Hartlib; Joachim Hübner

Ondřej PODAVKA, Formal, Scholarly and Familiar Styles in the Correspondence between Bohuslav Balbín and Alois Hackenschmidt (1664–1667)

The article deals with a period (1664 –1667) in the correspondence between the Jesuit Bohuslav Balbín (1621–1688) and Alois Hackenschmidt (1626–1683), the canon of Teplá monastery and a secretary to Abbot Rajmund Wilfert (d. 1670). To this end, it draws on 80 surviving letters from this era which supported the flow of information between the scholars and their cooperation. This surviving correspondence also illuminates several of Balbín's works and their reception. Apart from the content of these letters, I discuss their style and pay particular attention to salutations, valedictions and expressions of esteem, willingness and readiness to help. Some of the correspondence has a rather confidential and familiar tone, which sheds light on the relationship between the two scholars.

Keywords
Bohuslav Balbín; Alois Hackenschmidt; Intellectual Contacts; Correspondence

Jan HORSKÝ, Cultures of Evidence, Jan Amos Comenius and Paradigms of Interpretation: A D iscussion of Lenka Řezníková's New Book

This review article is a discussion of some of the conclusions in Lenka Řezníková’s book Ad majorem evidentiam. Literární  eprezentace „zřejmého“ v textech J. A. Komenského [Ad majorem evidentiam: Literary Representations of the Obvious in the Works of Johann Amos Comenius]. Řezníková gives an extensive and precise analysis of Comenius’s work in relation to the notion of “evidence”, or to a textual and discursive “production” of evidence. It is necessary to differentiate the two meanings of “evidence”: evidence in actual consciousness versus evidence in a text. Furthermore, it is necessary to differentiate the objectives. Is it primarily (1) how Comenius gnoseologically treats “evidence”? Or (2) how he handles the term “evidence” within discourse and “textual practice”? Or, finally, to use Řezníková’s words, (3) how he “produces evidence” and “suggests evidence” without necessarily pondering or even using the term evidentia? Attention is given to Comenius’s social theory of knowledge, Comenius’s conception of magnetism, the question of faith, and other sources of evidence apart from the senses and reason: visual evidence and historical evidence. One of the central themes of this review article is a discussion about whether “production” of evidence by “textual practice” can be considered without respect to extra-textual, extra-discursive experience. The article puts forward an antithesis: evidence is not a thing produced by a text, but rather a process induced. The source of evidence is outside a text, outside a discourse: it is in experience, for instance. This standpoint is grounded in a different paradigm from that of Lenka Řezníková, which does not, however, imply the illegitimacy of the latter.

Keywords
Evidence; Experience; Textual practice; Production of knowledge; Cultural constructivism

Martin ŽEMLA, Images of Light in the Work of Valentin Weigel: Metaphors or Metaphysics?

The Lutheran theologian and Paracelsian Valentin Weigel (1533–1588) is counted as one of the most influential German authors of the 16th century. In his theological and philosophical work, he was inspired by certain ideas and conceptions of a number of authors and sources, including the Bible, Boethius, Augustine, Hugh of St. Victor, medieval German Mysticism, Italian Renaissance Neo-Platonism, Nicolaus Cusa, Luther, Reformation heterodoxy, and Paracelsus. One of the recurring motifs in his work is the light and various images associated with it. It is the aim of the present study to analyze whether there is coherent and deliberately used metaphysics of light in Weigel's work – as it was found in his sources, particularly in the work of Marsilio Ficino, who at this point also influenced the Paracelsian tradition –, or whether he uses these images rather as metaphorical instruments. Based on a comparison of relevant passages and fragments found in various texts of Weigel (the only one consistently dealing with the subject being the brief treatise De luce et caligine divina), I come to a double answer: 1. Weigel works with metaphysics of the Neo-Platonic (Augustinian, Boethean, Ficinian) style which can be reconstructed from his texts. 2. Nevertheless, as a theologian, he uses the motives of light primarily in a symbolic and metaphorical sense to underpin and interpret his spiritual and mystical ideas.

Keywords
Valentin Weigel; Metaphysics of Light; Metaphors of Light; German Mysticism; Neo-Platonism

Stefan HESSENBRÜGGEN-WALTER, How and Why Philosophy Was First Called a System: Casmann against Hoffmann on Christian Wisdom and Double Truth

How and why did the notion of philosophy as a system evolve in Germany at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries? Otto Casmann's Modesta Assertio (1601) provides new answers to this question. Casmann, Clemens Timpler's predecessor as professor in Steinfurt refers to other 'like-minded philosophers' (nostrates) who believe that philosophy is a 'structured system of the liberal arts'. Casmann himself states that philosophy is a 'structured unity of erudite wisdom'. The text is part of the debate between Daniel Hoffmann and the Reformed philosophers about the relation between philosophy and theology. It can be made plausible that Hoffmann himself was Casmann's target. The paper shows that a 'structured unity of erudite wisdom' presupposes harmony between theological insights and the findings of philosophy. Thus the earliest discussions of philosophy as a system were meant to immunise Reformed philosophy against Hoffmann's attempt to revive Lutheran anti-philosophy.

Keywords
Otto Casmann; Daniel Hoffmann; Bartholomaeus Keckermann; Clemens Timpler; System; Definition of philosophy

Jana ČERNÁ, Homo Admirans in a New, More Spacious World: The Theme of Dignity in the Ibero-American Context in the Sixteenth

The study concerns the theme of human dignity in the sixteenth-century Ibero-American environment. It indicates parallels and motifs of these treatises congruent with contemporary European works about human dignity (Pico, Manetti, Ficino) as well as their specifics. Fascination with what the discovery of the New World meant for the growth of human dignity and gnoseological optimism is considered to be a specific feature. Particular Spanish treatises about the dignity of man (Pérez de Oliva, Vives, Salazar) are examined as well as discursively diversified contemporary texts of Ibero-American provenance which connect the theme of human dignity with the discovery of the New World (Gómara, Hernández, Huerta).

Keywords
Human dignity; New World; Spanish philosophy; Gnoseological optimism

Aneta KUBALOVÁ, Aller Menschen Ordnung seye man gehorsam zu leisten schuldig. Matthias Hoë von Hoënegg und seine lausitzischen und schlesischen Predikten in der Zeit des Dreißigjährigen Krieges

The essay deals with the political preaching activity of Matthias Hoë von Hoënegg (1580–1645), the main court Lutheran preacher in Dresden. At the beginning of the Thirty Years War, Saxon elector Johann Georg I, despite of his Lutheran confession, decided to support the Emperor in the war campaign in Upper and Lower Lusatia and Silesia. Matthias Hoë, as his close friend and court preacher, through these sources supported the political strategies of the Saxon elector and explained his stance on the Bohemian Revolt and the Bohemian Confederation. The main argument of his sermons is the duty of the obedience to the landlords. He explained, why it was very important to obey Roman Emperor and used this reason for justification of the political loyalty of the Saxon elector Johann Georg I.

Keywords
Lutheran; Sermons; Matthias Hoë von Hoënegg; Saxony; Elector

Hana FERENCOVÁ, Who remained, turned their Religion: Bohemian Lands in the Travel Journal of John Swinton

The paper deals with the English travel journal The travels of three English gentlemen, from Venice to Hamburgh, being the Grand Tour of Germany, in the year 1734 written by John Swinton which was published in The Harleian Miscellany in the years 1745–46. Attention is drawn to the significance and value of this little-known travelogue. The image of the Bohemian lands presented in the travelogue is discussed and the research focuses particularly on the representation of the religious conversion of the Bohemian lands in the seventeenth century and its consequences from the perspective of an eighteenth-century English traveller as an external observer coming from Western Europe.

Keywords
Travel; Traveller; English; Bohemia; Bohemian lands; 18th Century; John Swinton; Conversion

Jan ČÍŽEK, Jan Amos Comenius and Francis Bacon: Two Early Modern Paths to the Restoration of Knowledge

Since the very beginning of modern Comenius studies there have been attempts to examine the relationship of the Czech philosopher, theologian, and educational reformer Jan Amos Comenius (1592–1670) to the English philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon (1561–1626). A study dealing with the efforts of both philosophers to reform philosophy (or knowledge in general) is, nevertheless, still lacking. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to introduce Comenius's relationship to the work of Francis Bacon in this regard. In the first part, the author presents an overview of Comenius's references to Bacon. The following section focuses on a description and comparison of the structure and fundamental concepts held by both Comenius and Bacon in their works relevant for the topic. In the last part of the paper, the reader will find the characteristics of both philosophers' projects of the restoration of knowledge (of their basis, idea, and goal). The author concludes that although both Comenius and Bacon directed their intellectual powers towards restoring the original immaculate knowledge of Adam, they approached its implementation in their own unique and original ways.

Keywords
Jan Amos Comenius; Francis Bacon; Early Modern philosophy; Reform of knowledge; Pansophy

Petr PAVLAS, ´The Best of All Possible Languages´: Marin Mersenne as a Source of Comenius´s Combinatorial Approach to Language Planning

Apart from cabbalist and Lullist "philosophical combinatorics", there is a tradition of mathematical combinatorics connected with transposing letters (phones) from Cardano on. While Girolamo Cardano (1539) uses the combinations of letters as a more or less random illustration of the method of combinatorial calculations, Christopher Clavius (1570) more appropriately applies permutation and Daniel Schwenter (1636) thinks about putting all the gained "words" down. Paul Guldin (1641), moreover, enumerates the media and space needed for such an enterprise. The problem is, step by step, taken more and more seriously. Marin Mersenne and Jan Amos Comenius take this problem as a serious issue too. This study shows the influence of Marin Mersenne's Harmonie universelle (1636) on Jan Amos Comenius's combinatorial approach to language planning. The influence could be either direct or indirect (perhaps via a hypothetical translation or abstract by Theodore Haak). However, there is no doubt that Comenius was acquainted with Mersenne's project in detail. Comenius is the first thinker whose combinatorial calculations are a part of a treatise focused purely on general linguistic (Novissima linguarum methodus, 1648). Kircher's Polygraphia nova et universalis appears in 1663, Leibniz's Dissertatio de arte  combinatoria in 1666, van Helmont's Alphabeti vere naturalis Hebraici brevissima delineatio in 1667.

Keywords
Combinatorics; Combinatorial mathematics; Raymond Lull; Girolamo Cardano; Christopher Clavius; Paul Guldin; Daniel Schwenter; Marin Mersenne; Jan Amos Comenius

Sandra BIHLMAIER, Platonism in Humanist Logic Textbooks of the Sixteenth Century: Melanchthon, Ramus and the Philippo-Ramists

The paper examines the relevance of Platonic and Neoplatonic assumptions for two famous concepts of Humanist logic in the Renaissance: Melanchthon's Erotemata dialectices and Ramus's Dialecticae libri duo, and their assimilation into four different sixteenth-century Philippo-Ramist textbooks. It argues that both Melanchthon's and Ramus's shared meta-logical implications, as well as the influence of these implications on the particular understanding, structure and function of dialectic are mirrored by the later Philippo-Ramist attempts to harmonize their doctrines. By uncovering the epistemological implications behind such concepts as "nature", "intellect" and "natural light" and their bearing on the Humanist concepts of dialectic, some new light can be shed on the way late sixteenth-century authors assessed, compared and joined the at times divergent heritage of their Humanist teachers. This paper thus contributes to the assessment of the origins and development of a particular understanding of logic in late sixteenth-century Protestant Germany.

Jiří BENEŠ, Humanist Scholars on Authority of Their Latin Bible Translations

The study deals with the motives, approaches, and apologies of the leading humanist scholars in the field of translating and interpreting the Bible. Special attention is paid to the crucial figure of the Humanist Biblical tradition, Erasmus of Rotterdam. His edition of the Greek text of the New Testament and his new Latin translation of it represent the first flowering of New Testament exegesis, based on criticism and philology. No matter how conscientious his approach to the Biblical text might have been, he and his followers had to cope with the basic problem of authenticity of the text merely derived from the Holy Writ. The present paper deals with the arguments of Erasmus and his contemporaries or successors, namely Immanuel Tremellius, Santes Pagninus, Theodor Beza, Sebastian Castellio and the editors of the Zurich Bible (especially Petrus Cholinus), defending not only possibility, but also utility and benefit of new Bible translations for the renewal of spirituality and of religious thought itself. After having explored the representative achievements of their endeavors, the author comes to conclusion that the principal question for them was not "whether", but "why" and "how". They were aware of dealing with delicate matter, but in principle they did not consider it an essential obstacle. Common feature of their argumentation has been explicitly grasped by Erasmus (see motto): the Holy Spirit invites us to cooperation, he never operates alone. Given this, there was no reason to ruminate the question of authority. The "verbal inspiration of the biblical text", an important principle held later by many Protestant, was not order of the day at that times. Moreover, the theory of divine inspiration not only of the Hebrew text, but also of that of its Greek translation, was sustained as early as in the eve of Christianity by Philo of Alexandria to corroborate the authority of the Septuagint. In a certain simplification we may assume that this was the first attempt to justify translating of the Holy Scripture.

Martin ŽEMLA, Valentin Weigel und seine Auslegungen der Genesis

An important part of the work of the Lutheran pastor, mystic, theosophist, and Paracelsian Valentin Weigel (1533–1588) consists of interpretations of the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis. The writings, which treat the theme systematically and in extenso, had already caught the interest of modern scholars primarily from the historical and philological perspective, oriented towards determining their disputed authorship. Even now, however, after the publication of the critical edition of Weigel's four major commentaries on Genesis in 2007, these treatises have been little examined from the point of view of their intellectual content, sources, and role in his thought. These questions are addressed in this study. It deals with not only the four systematic commentaries but also with reflections on the same topic in other texts of the author. Weigel, whose discussions in many points foreshadow the theosophy of Jacob Böhme, turns critically against Luther and Melanchthon, and he tacitly draws on earlier interpretations (Origenes, Augustine, Hugh of St. Victor, Pico della Mirandola, Paracelsus). It is on the basis of the commentaries on Genesis, which Weigel himself considered as fundamentally important from the very beginnings – and, indeed, they have a crucial position within his work – that one can assess not only his natural philosophical concepts but above all the relationship of the "natural" knowledge to the mystical and religious knowledge that are inseparably conjoined in his work. Their convergence does not include empirical examination of the world but rather the correct understanding of the introductory passages of Genesis, which according to Weigel sum up the whole Bible. For Weigel, the knowledge of nature is something essentially different from how it is presented by Paracelsus – to whom Weigel otherwise refers so much. It is man who stands at the centre of Weigel's interests – more exactly man as capax Dei – and he subjects all his theosophical reflections on creation to this mystical perspective.

Jan ČÍŽEK, The Pansophia of Jan Amos Comenius with Regard to His Concept of Nature

This study deals with the concept of natura as it is presented in Comenius's Pansophia. Since Comenius's concept of nature is inseparable from his anthropological views, the paper discusses also his anthropology. Man is considered here an integral part of the material world which, however, through his immortal mind and its three infinite components surpasses the material world and rises above it. Man, especially in his limitlessness and freedom of human will, resembles God. The human individual thus becomes not only the creation of God, but the partner and collaborator of God, insofar as the process of completing the work of Creation is concerned. The outcomes of human activity are called the world of human creation, the world of morality and the world of the spirit, in which nature is brought to perfection. The final part of the study focuses on the concept of natura humana which is important in the whole Consultatio catholica, not only in the Pansophia. Despite all difficulties in interpretation, Comenius's concept of human nature can be reconstructed. According to Comenius the basis of human nature is the openness of human existence founded on the free and unrestricted will.

Andrew L. THOMAS, Francis Daniel Pastorius and the Northern Protestant Transatlantic World

In 1683 Francis Daniel Pastorius became the founder of Germantown, Pennsylvania, the first German settlement in colonial North America. He and several prominent German Pietists in Frankfurt originally wanted to follow in William Penn's wake by setting up a "godly community" in America. Although it is generally recognized that the works of Jan Amos Comenius, Jacob Böhme and Johann Valentin Andreae influenced the Frankfurt Pietists, very little has been done on addressing how much impact Rosicrucianism and Behmenism had on Pastorius's late Renaissance hopes of utopian renewal and eschatological fears. Through an examination of Pastorius's commonplace book the Beehive, this paper contends that the Rosicrucian and Behmenist influences on Pastorius were critical in motivating his colonizing efforts and elucidate his perspectives dealing with alchemy, astrology, and his relationship with Swedish settlers that he encountered.

Iva LELKOVÁ, The Ebb and Flow of Blood: A Case Study on the Early Modern Analogy of Movement of Seawaters and the Circulation of Blood in the Human Body

The study concerns a seventeenth-century analogy between the movement of seawaters and the movement of fluids in human body. The ideas of Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) on the geocosmos, expressed in his Mundus subterraneus (1664–1665) and Iter extaticum II (1657) are compared with the work of his correspondent, the physician from Wroclaw and editor of the first medicine journal, Philipp Jacob Sachs von Lewenheimb (1627–1672), who wrote Oceanus macro-microcosmicus (1664). In this analogy Sachs took into account the latest discoveries of the Danish physician Thomas Bartholin (1616–1680) on the lymphatic system in addition to William Harvey's (1578–1657) experiments on the circulation of blood. These elements make Sachs' treatise an interesting mixture of a fundamentally analogical approach with the latest findings of natural philosophy. Both authors use the analogy between the seawaters' movement and the movement of fluids in the human body in different ways, which leads to an analysis of the Aristotelian and Platonic approaches to analogy in their works and the question of the shift from the Renaissance episteme to the modern one.

Miroslav HANKE, Peter Crockaert on Self-Reference

The Dominican philosopher and theologian Peter Crockaert, also known as Peter of Brussels (c. 1460–1514), was a former member of the nominalist circle of John Mair. Having received nominalist training from one of the prominent post-medieval scholastic logicians, he entered the Dominican order and adopted a Thomist identity. As a result, his sentential semantics combines thirteenth-century Thomist framework with late medieval logical analysis, including the complexe significabile debate and analysis of self-reference. Crockaert's analysis of self-reference displays three notable features: Crockaert 1) defi nes truth in contextualist terms; 2) lists alternative approaches to self-reference as part of analysis of contradiction; 3) attempts to relate analysis of self-reference to Aquinas's works.

Miquel BELTRÁN, God's Essence and Attributes according to Some Jewish Thinkers in Renaissance Mantua

The aim of this paper is to give an account of some arguments used by Judah Moscato and other Mantuan Jewish thinkers of the Renaissance to equate God’s essence with the Supernal Torah, and to argue that nature can be considered as a realm in which God’s signs are ubiquitously stamped. According to Moscato’s Sermons, God transmits His spiritual energy to nature in such a way that He is in some manner all of the existents. Given so, man is required to search for the evidence of God in nature by means of his intellect, to decode the signs through which God unveils the eternal intelligible truths contained in the Supernal Torah. The Neoplatonic bias perceptible in the Kabbalistic works of Yohanan Alemanno and Abraham Yagel is also examined.

Keywords
Kabbalah, Mantua, Renaissance philosophy, Judah Moscato

Jana ČERNÁ, (Non) plus ultra per Britannia: The Influence of Spanish Scholarship on Bacon's Idea of the Restoration and Classifi cation of the Sciences

This paper analyses the impact of Spanish Renaissance science (particularly natural history and cosmography) – or rather, its methodology – on the scientific thought of Francis Bacon. The aim of this study is to identify the features of Baconian thought that are similar to some of the concepts and practices of Spanish scholars (Francisco Hernandez, Juan Huarte de San Juan and cosmographers of the House of Trade in Seville). Specifically, the text tries to demonstrate the hypothetic influence of Spanish thought on Bacon's concepts of the institutionalisation of knowledge, empirical and experimental methods of scientific research, the idea that "power is knowledge" and the ways of classification of sciences. Some simplifications and misinterpretations of the Spanish roots of Baconian science (Cañizares-Esguerra, A. Barrera-Osorio, T. J. Reiss, D. Goodman and J. Pimentel) are also reappraised or refuted in this paper.

Keywords
Renaissance science, Francis Bacon, Spain, experimental method

Petr DVOŘÁK, Self-Evident Propositions in Late Scholasticism: The Case of ´God Exists´

The paper explores the status of the proposition "God exists" in late scholastic debates of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in some key authors of the era. A proposition is said to be self-evident if its truth is known solely from the meaning of the terms and is not inferred from other propositions. It does not appear to be immediately evident from the terms that God exists, for the concept expressed by "God" is based on the relation to creatures and negation of imperfection and does not reach to the divine essence. Thomas Aquinas maintains that there are two types of self-evident propositions: those self-evident in themselves (secundum se) but not to us (non quoad nos) and those self-evident in themselves as well as to us. "God exists" is of the first type.
For Scotus a self-evident proposition is such that if its terms are conceived by any intellect, the truth of the proposition becomes known from the terms, non-inferentially. In his view there is no distinction between a self-evident proposition in itself and that in relation to us, because any proposition self-evident in itself is known to be such to any intellect, even though it might not be actually known; it would be known, provided that the terms are conceived. So for Scotus the sentence "God exists" expresses different propositions for the blessed in heaven, the angels and God on the one hand and humans on the other. The former is self-evident, the latter is not.
While later scholastics accept either the solution of Thomas or that of Scotus, according to which "God exists" is not self-evident for humans, Thomas de Argentina (also known as Thomas of Strasbourg, 1275-1357) differs in that for him "God exists" is self-evident for humans too. The position of Thomas Aquinas was defended by Domingo Bañez (1528–1604), Francisco Zumel (1540–1607) and Gregorio de Valentia (1549–1603). In contrast, Johannes Poncius (John Punch or Ponce, 1603–1661, also 1599–1672) was a famous adherent of Scotus. There is a fair number of scholastics harmonizing the doctrine of Thomas and Scotus: Bernard Sannig (1638–1704), Luis de Molina (1536–1600), Gabriel Vázquez (c. 1549–1604), Rodrigo de Arriaga (1592–1667) and Jean Lalemandet (1595–1647). According to these authors, when Thomas says that "God exists" is self-evident in itself, he speaks about the extensional proposition, i.e. the state of affairs being conceptualized, which does not contradict Scotus's teaching.

Keywords
late scholasticism, philosophy of language, self-evident propositions, 17th century

Jan MALURA, Zur Rezeption der deutschen Meditationsliteratur im tschechischen protestantischen Milieu des Späthumanismus

The study deals with early modern literary works whose purpose was to improve the private devotion of the laity. In German-speaking lands, the term used for this genre is Erbauungsliteratur; in Czech-speaking lands it is called nábožensky vzdělavatelná literature (religious educational literature). There was a real boom of this type of literature in the German-speaking Protestant countries from the 1580s. This paper analyses how printed production in the Czech language coped with this phenomenon. It focuses primarily on books in which the genre of mediation dominates, and explores the prompt reaction to two authors active between approximately 1580–1620 who found intensive response in the Bohemian Lands. One was the non-conformist writer Martin Moller (1547–1606), whose activity was connected primarily with Lower Silesia. His two books written in German were published in Czech as early as 1593. One was the První díl Meditationes (First Part of Meditationes), compiled predominantly from the meditations of medieval mystics (translated by Tobiáš Mouřenín of Litomyšl); the other a volume of Passiontide meditations, Soliloqvia de Passione Iesu Christi (translated by Daniel Adam of Veleslavín). Our second author is the influential theologian of Lutheran orthodoxy Johann Gerhard (1582–1637), who worked mainly at the university in Jena and wrote in Latin. Gerhard's contemplative work was issued in a Czech version for the first time in 1616, under the title Padesátero přemyšlování duchovní (Fifty spiritual meditations). It was translated by the otherwise unknown burgher Pavel Lykaon Kostelecký from the Old Town of Prague. Gerhard uses impact of affects and elaborate rhetoric, and understands meditation as the comfort and healing of the sick soul. The dominant aim of the books analysed was not denominational influence, but the deepening of the burgher's private spiritual life and his self-improvement. The translations at the same time raise Czech religious prose to a new stylistic level, founded on linguistic expressiveness. The impulses of German contemplative literature later bore fruit in the work of Comenius, especially in his so called consolation writings of the 1620s and 1630s. From the 1710s, further interest in the more sophisticated writings on meditation can be traced in the Czech and Slovak environment, that is, among the Protestant exiles and Lutherans in Upper Hungary.

Keywords
Contemplative literature, German Protestantism, Reception, Bohemian Lands

Markéta KLOSOVÁ, School Theatre after Comenius: Šebastián Macer and the Leszno Plays (1641–1652)

The article is devoted to dramas performed at the school in Leszno in the 17th century, especially in the 1640s and 1650s – that is, during the rectorate of Šebestián Macer of Letošice. According to surviving sources, the number of plays produced then, in comparison with the preceding era when Comenius was rector, definitely did not decrease. The tendencies established by Comenius's play Diogenes of 1640 continued in the next period. In the Macer era, first, a number of secular elements (e.g. in the play Hercules monstrorum domitor) were introduced in plays performed on the Leszno stage; secondly, at that time too, factual teaching material was adapted into a play (Macer's dramatisation of Comenius's Janua). That was in harmony with the practice of a number of Polish and Silesian schools at the time, which presented actus oratorii, in principal composed rhetorical productions that in some cases adapted the teaching material.

Keywords
Unity of Brethren, Leszno, pedagogy, theatre

Josef KADEŘÁBEK, Esteemed Friends, Heretics, Traitors: Changes in the Perception of Post-White Mountain Émigrés from Slaný

This study addresses a previously unexamined aspect of post-White Mountain exile: the way the image of those who had left the Bohemian lands gradually changed in their original social environment. The author carries out an analytical probe into the particular social environment of the Royal Town of Slaný, from which one of the largest waves of refugees from the Kingdom of Bohemia left for Saxony in the 1620s. Drawing on provincial, municipal and church sources, he endeavours to show how the picture of the local exiles gradually changed from a thoroughly tolerant attitude to one of unequivocally negative rejection. Several factors lay behind this change. Heavy pressure from above, at provincial and patrimonial level, was put to bear on the Slaný burghers, spreading a negative image of the exiles. After 1635, in connection with the alliance concluded between the Emperor and the Saxon Elector, this pressure differentiated. From below, it first took the form of an attempt by individual townspeople to acquire – by circulating a negative image of the exiles – social and financial benefits in the newly forming post-White Mountain society. This shift was later supported by a wave of popular religiosity evoked by the events of the Thirty Years War, by generational change, and by a complete transformation of local denominational identification and collective identity. The author would like in his further work to compare this local probe into the urban environment with research into urban communities with a different social dynamic and geography, and later to undertake similar research in the context of the lower and upper nobility.

Keywords
Slaný, Re-Catholisation, exile, Thirty Years War

Eva HAJDINOVÁ, Bohemian Non-Catholics and Languedoc nouveaux convertis: Prophetic and Sectarian Movements in a Comparative Perspective

The culminating confessional rivalries in the early 17^th century provided fertile ground in much of Europe, especially Central Europe, for visions of the imminent End of the World and Christ's Second Coming. This paper offers a new perspective for the well-known topic and compares the eschatological visions in the 17^th and 18^th centuries of the Bohemian non-Catholics and emigrants on the one hand and the secret Huguenots on the other. While the belligerent apocalyptic visions in the Bohemian environment saw a turning point and an opportunity to overthrow the Antichrist in the imminent coming of an allied Protestant ruler destined by God and this continued until the end of the 18^th century, the French Protestant prophecies appealed almost exclusively to the glory of Christ and his rule on Earth. Despite significant differences in the religious practice and historical contexts of the two cases, we observe not only very similar physical manifestations in the prophets' behaviour but also, thanks to these ideas, a renewal of the declining piety of the believers and the reactivation of the underground religious movement. In both environments the apocalyptic visions have been heavily criticized by legal ecclesiastical authorities in exile. Disciplinary interventions against these heterodox ideas had however a completely different result, playing a significant role in the process of legalization of Protestant worship at the end of the period in question.

Keywords
prophecy, eschatology, Languedoc, Bohemian Lands

Nicolette MOUT, Consolation at Night: Jan Patočka and his Correspondence with Comeniologists

Jan Patočka (1907–1977) approached Johannes Amos Comenius as a fellow-philosopher, while admiring him also for his intellectual and moral steadfastness. He studied Comenius as a philosopher from the thirties onwards, stressing the latter's unique position in the history of Czech and European thought. Patočka's many Comeniological publications were analysed and highly appreciated by fellow-Comeniologists.
In the first volume, containing correspondence with Czech friends and colleagues, letters start in the early thirties, but Comeniology, including the vicissitudes surrounding the edition of Comenius's complete works, come to the fore from the late fifties onwards. Correspondents include friends and colleagues such as Josef Brambora and Antonín Škarka and a few older colleagues. A large number of letters was exchanged with Comenius's biographer Milada Blekastad and with the young philosopher Stanislav Sousedík.
The second volume comprises letters exchanged with only a few foreign correspondents: next to the Ukrainian scholar Dmytro Čyževskyj and the French colleague Marcelle Denis, a personal friend of Patočka's, the greater part of the volume is filled with letters to and from the German scholar and personal friend Klaus Schaller.
These two volumes add much to our understanding of Patočka's nearly lifelong and profound interest in Comenius's thought. The intellectual acumen and constant engagement reflected in these letters must have meant much to Patočka and his Comeniological correspondents in and outside Czechoslovakia. Maybe these exchanges of letters brought some light and consolation even in the darkest of times.

Keywords
Jan Patočka, correspondence, Comeniology, review article