Petrőczi Éva: "Nagyságodnak alázatos lelki szolgája” Tanulmányok Medgyesi Pálról - Nemzet, egyház, művelődés 4. (Budapest - Debrecen, 2007)
An English and a Hungarian Anti-Episcopal Dialogue from the i6th-i7th centuries
An English and a Hungarian Anti-Episcopal Dialogue from the i6,l'-i7,h centuries <A; Some pages later Medgyesi seems to regret his harsh announcement concerning the over-all episcopalism of the English and mentions with great honour three great theologians of Albion whose works strengthened the other, the synod-presbyterian side: Brightman(nus), Parker(us) and Downame are enumerated as three athletes, three warriors of Christ.'3 Medgyesi’s third remark, which easily proves his familiarity with English ecclesiastical matters can be found at about the end of his long (circa ten times as long as the English one) Dialogue: „The hierarchical or episcopal English and all their fellow-thinkers, before Christ vomited them out, because of their double-dealing... The ones who were so near, especially in governing their Church, to the Popish ones, that the Popish themselves confessed in England (as Parkerus mentions) that the bishops when quarrelling with the Popish, behave like Puritans; and when they want to argue against the Puritans behave like the Popish ones...1-» Throckmorton’s text, with its over-repeated, barren and boring „I pray you” formula seems to be quite gray and monotonous, compared to Medgyesi’s unusually vivid, turbulent sentences. They are close relatives only in mentality, in their anti-episcopal ideas. The English author very often refers to the great ones of the reformation, from Calvin and Beza to William Whitaker who was widely read and quoted in 17th-century Hungary, while Medgyesi mentions only a few widely known personalities, just from among the positive examples. He - though with undoubted Puritan affinities - was very far from the scandalous style of the „Marprelate gang”. No wonder: in our country the Puritan ideas had nothing in common with the great political events and changes; it remained a rather marginal spiritual awakening, but a very flourishing era of our early modern literature. As for the „enemies”, the episcopals: the Hungarian author rather generalizes than concretizes as he is fighting on the celestial and not on the earthly level; he avoids the dangers of actualizing very cautiously, while his English colleague tries to find all the possible traps and the opportunities for a public martyrdom. If we discuss Medgyesi’s Dialogue from various aspects, one important layer must be mentioned by all means. Its Preface which proves that the popular author was not only a Puritan, but an ardent and highly conscious purist as well, a true defender of the Hungarian tongue. The greater >3 MEDGYESI ibid. 46. ‘4 MEDGYESI ibid. 222. In Hungarian: „Az hierarchicus avagy püspökös anglusok és minden ezekhez vonók, míg Krisztus a kétféle sántikálásért ki nem okádá őket. Kik is oly közel jártának,kiváltképpen az eklézsia igazgatás dolgában, hogy magok a pápisták Angliában meg- vallották azt (mint Parkerus említi), hogy az püspökök mikor az pápistákkal vetekednek, puritánusok, mikor penig puritánusokat akarnak cáfolni, akkor ismét mint pápisták...” 99
