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

bilities of a „true” bishop and expresses the significance of controlling their deeds and decisions, both in their office and in their private spheres.11

First let me illustrate the basic differences between the two dialogues. As I have already mentioned, the English piece is more drama-like, it seems to be written for a virtual stage, at least because it is not a plain dialogue between two speakers, but a quartet, with four talking persons, namely Jack of Both Sides, Puritan, Idol Minister, Papist. The best of these talking names is that of Jack, an ideal label for a double-dealer. Megyesi’s Dialogus politico-ecclesiasticus is less differentiated as far as the talking persons are concerned: the Asking One and the Answering One are two 17th-century Everyman-like figures, very likely the dwellers of a village as the elements of their local colour suggest. One of them is an expert and a supporter of the synod-presbyterian system, while the other is totally ignorant in all these matters of church government. But -as I have already mentioned - without any unhealthy or empty national pride: the Hungarian Dialogue’s reasoning is unusually rich, colourful, at some points sounds like the libretto of an opera buffa. The author’s relatively long stay in Cambridge can be also witnessed on reading the text; especially one passage, in which the One Who Answers mentions the Anglican Church as an absolutely negative and pitiful example. He seems to be extremely proud of the —at least in his opinion - more developed Hungarian Reformed Church in which the elders of the community play an important role in the ecclesiastical government. Medgyesi — though a very grateful friend and disciple of England and a man of exceptionally good English knowledge - even risks the not very polite attribute, „The only one miserable England...”. The other speaker’s reaction is full of irony and humour: “Even my guts are shivering on hearing all these...” Of course, the spice and all the flavours of the original text are not really coming through in English as its turns and expressions belong to the special vocabulary of the Hungarian peasantry, to our rural culture. In a foreign language this kind of speech not only loses its bests, but sounds like a sterile folkloristic example.11 12

An English and a Hungarian Anti-Episcopal Dialogue

from the i6'h-iyth centuries

11 SZTÁRAI, Mihály: Az igaz papságnak tiköre, in: Magyar drámaírók, 16-18 század (Hungarian Dramatists, l6-i8th centuries), kiadja Nagy Péter, Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 1981 (Magyar Remekírók), 40-42.

12 MEDGYESI, Pál: Dialogus politico-ecclesiasticus (Politico-Eccleasiastical Dialogue), Klöss

jun., Bártfa, 1650. (RMNy 2309.) - The above mentioned critical passage - about the Anglicans - in Hungarian: „A mi a vallásunkban lévő' más nembéli ekklézsiáknak példájokat illeti, azok egy akaratból és tetszésből többnyire mindnyájan prédikátorokból és igazgató öregekből álló presbytériumokat tartanak. Az egy nyomorult Anglia vonta ki magát, jobbnak vélvén az nagy érsekek és püspökök által való igazgatást, koncért. Ügy tetszik,valamint indultál meg az többin, de ezeken valóban megposdulhatsz. Kérdező: Él az Isten, még az bélem is reszket belé, hogy ezeket hallom.”

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