Sárospataki Füzetek 14. (2010)
2010 / 2. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Kaiser, Christopher Barina: "Isten bölcsességének jelei" Comenius Panorthosia c. művében: egy bibliai téma a modern tudomány alapjaiban
Christopher Kaiser Boyle and Isaac Newton. They exemplify the dual faith that subsequent generations of physicists inherited and on which they built the “miracle” of modern science. The Marks of God’s Wisdom” in Comenius’s Panorthosia In order illustrate this twofold faith and explore its ultimate sources, I shall focus on Comenius’s Panorthosia, or “Treatise on Universal Reform.” The Panorthosia was just one part of Comenius’s magnum opus, De rerum humanarum emendatione consultatio catholica (ET, “A General Deliberation about the Improvement of Human Affairs”)7 written in the 1640s and ‘50s, which has been called “the climax of his whole philosophy.”8 The part of the Panorthosia that concerns us here is chapter XI, “Concerning the New ‘Universal Philosophy’ [Philosophiam Catholican.?] Which Will Guide the Human Mind toward a Sate of Perfection.” Although this particular part of the Panorthosia was not published during Comenius’s lifetime, the ideas were an integral part of his teaching and conversation and, no doubt, were taught here in Sárospatak.9 What Comenius had in mind when he spoke of a “Universal Philosophy” was a set of basic principles that would lead to a new natural philosophy of universal scope—in other words, modern science. For Comenius, this scientific endeavor was an integral part of his lifelong quest for a Christian Pansophy or “Universal Wisdom”—the quest for a harmonic, encyclopedic system that embraces science, politics, and ethics as well as theology.10 We will begin our discussion with section 8 of this chapter. Here Comenius states that the new Universal Philosophy must be based on what he calls “the perfect threefold Book of God.” Today, when we speak of the book or books of God, we generally think of the Jewish Torah, or the Christian Bible, or the Qur’an. But prior to the secularization of modern science, Europeans also thought of 7 A.M.O. Dobbie, “Translator’s Preface” to John Amos Comenius: Panorthosia, or Universal Reform, Chapters 1-18 and 27 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 11. The form of the title is also given as De emendatione rerum humanarum consultationis catholicae in Dmitrij Tschizewskij and Klaus Schaller, eds, Johann Amos Comenius: Ausgeivahlte Werke, 3 vols (Hildesheim, 1973). 8 Dobbie, “Translator’s Preface” to John Amos Comenius: Panorthosia,” 16. Comenius’s earliest known mention of the Consultatio was in the dedication of Comenius’s Via Lucis, circulated in 1642; Dobbie, “Translator’s Preface,” 13-14. 9 Chapters I-X of the Panorthosia were first published in 1657; Dobbie, “Translator’s Preface” to John Amos Comenius: Panorthosia,” 23. A new edition was published in Prague in 1950; Dobbie, “Translator’s Prologue” to John Amos Comenius: Panorthosia, or Universal Reform, Chapters 19-26 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 9; cf. Igor Kiss, “Johann Amos Comenius’ Vorstellungen über die Einhiet Europas und der Welt,” in Informationes Theologiae Europae: Internationales ökumenisches Jahrbuch für Theologie, ed. Ulrich Nembach (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2003), 284n.8. 10 Comenius developed his pansophic program as early as 1630, when he began work on his first encyclopedia, Janua rerum (“The Gate of Things”), and in 1637 in his Pansophiae prodromus (“Introduction to Pansophy”), both written in Leszno, Poland. In 1641-2, while he was in London, C. wrote Via lucis (“The Way of Light”), as a manifesto of Christian pansophy and world missions. 24 Sárospataki füzetek
