Petrőczi Éva: "Nagyságodnak alázatos lelki szolgája” Tanulmányok Medgyesi Pálról - Nemzet, egyház, művelődés 4. (Budapest - Debrecen, 2007)
Parallel Lives Lewis Bayly: The Practice of Piety, Pál Medgyesi: Praxis pietatis
Parallel Lives Lewis Bay ly: The Practice of Piety, Pál Medgyesi: Praxis pietatis iK: Shortly: Medgyesi’s argumentation is a peculiar amalgamation of the Puritan „plain style” and the vocabulary of a very expressive, sometimes almost rural author, who was at home in the verbal world of the Hungarian intellectuals and in the more harsh diction of the Hungarian peasantry as well. After this short survey of some fragments of the English original and its contemporary Hungarian version it’s high time to have a closer look at the personality of the author and of the translator as well. Both our priestly gentlemen were talented enough to raise a rather strong aversion against themselves in their seventeenth-century circles, though the critical remarks about Medgyesi were of a milder sort. As, for instance, Sándor Szilágyi, a famous nineteenth-century historian also mentions his talent and knowledge with great reverence, but he also emphasizes his extreme pride and stubbornness and his being usually unmerciful with his rivals.4 5 Sándor Szilágyi also quotes the words of the father of the Hungarian literary criticism, Peter Bod, who - in his Hungarian Athenas speaks about Medgyesi with great honour, but at the same time describes him as an originally unpleasant and unbearable character. The afterlife of Lewis Bayly is even worth. Andrew Foster and Kenneth Fincham present him with numerous negative attributes, like „pugnacious”, „indiscreet”, „headstrong” etc. And what is even worse, an unusually rude contemporary slogan is also quoted by them, namely that „Bayly was the bishop of Banghoree”, the bishop of the town of Bangor (Snowdonia) and its area.s A third, somewhat milder and less impatient opinion can be read about Lewis Bayly, written by A. H. Dodd, published in the paper of the Caernarvonshire Historical Society. His article does not glorify Bayly, but shows a greater objectiveness than the majority of British literary and church historians. The author of The Practice of Piety is described here with the very same expressions as our Medgyesi in Hungary. He is depicted as a „popular preacher” whose Puritanism however is the milder brand.”6 Apart from these similar expressions equally linked to their persons there is a third analogy between the author and his Hungarian translator. Namely, their social position. They both had to live and survive as creative artists in classically feudal circumstances. Bayly served the lords of Gwydir and Lleyn while Medgyesi served as the court-preacher of Prince György Rákóczi I. and his wife, Princess Zsuzsanna Lórántffy. It meant the exis4 SZILÁGYI, Sándor: To the Life of Pál Medgyesi (Medgyesi Pál életéhez), in: Protestáns Szemle 1890, p. 151. 5 FOSTER, Andrew: The Church of England (1570-1640), Longman, London, 1994, p. 28. FINCHAM, Kenneth: Prelate as Pastor, The Episcopate of James I., Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990, pp. 32, 81,181-182, 271-273. 6 DODD, A. H:: Lewis Bayly, in: Caernarvonshire Historical Society 28 (1967) p. 13-36. 91
