Folia Theologica 16. (2005)
Pál Bolberitz: The Beginnings of Hungarian Philosphy (The Reception of Nicholas of Cusa in the work of "De homine" by Peter Monedulatus Csokas Laskoi)
16 P. BOLBERITZ his book presents a detailed and comprehensive list of the names of Hungarian students, studying23 in the university of Wittenberg from the beginning of the Reformation. The data of the register may provide an enriched material for the special bibliography in the topic of the attending by the Hungarian Protestant young men in the 16th century. Anyway the fact itself that the author considered necessary to mention his compatriots to such an extent, indisputably justifies his patriotic feelings, his devotion to his homeland being under the Turkish rule.Laskoi's book of "De homine" is on human being. About human being, consisting of body and soul. In the terms of the current scientific terminology his book belongs to the theological anthropology, but behind the outside appearance - implementing a recent term again - a philosophical anthropology is actually hidden, taking a glance outward at every turn, especially in the first chapters of the book, where Laskoi seems to establish his topic on philosophical grounds. Peter Csókás Lakói wrote his book in the style of the late renaissance, implementing its methods. In this period intelligentsia was usually involved in the religious polemies, though the observation of nature and the human being, as the characteristic tendency of the modern times can be traced in numerous ways. Our author - according to the customs of his age - quotes almost the ancient classical thinkers (mainly the pagan philosophers)24 in an encyclopedical excess, the ancient Doctors of the 23 Cp. LASKOI: The Book of „De homine”, the numbered pages of „Epistola dedicatoria ” 24 The Renaissance did not elaborate an independent philosophical system, but citated the ancient classical Latin and Greek authors, and furtherly the great representatives of the patristic and scholastic age. Hereby we are enlisting the most frequently citated authors by Laskai: Aristoteles, Aurelius Augustinus, Platon, Galenus, Plinius, Cardanus, Anaxagoras, Basilius, Macorbius, Cicero, Vergilius, Marcus Maximilius, kaballisták, Philon, Reuchlinus, Boëtius, Hilarius, Cyprianus, Eusebius, Gennaidus, Terullianus, Lactantius, Iraeneus, Clemens Alexandrinus, Athanasius, Pythagoras, Varro, Dun Scotus, Hyeronimus, Plutarchos, Pryscillianus, Demokritus, Aelianus, Theophrastos, Aenèas Gazenus, Bernardus, Thomas Aquinatis, Chrysostomus, Theodoretos, Cassiodorus, Gregorius Nissenus, Gregorius Naziansenus, Avicenna. Nicolaus Cusanus, Pico della Mirandolo, Theodoretus Beza, Martinus Luther, Melanchton, Caietanus, Mercurius Trismegistos. Heraclitus Ponticus, Mercurius Trismegistos, Aeneas Gazenus, Prudentius, Epiphanius, Horatius, Avicenna and others. N. B. names are mentioned in the form, as it is available in Latin int he book of „De homine” by Laskai.
