Petrőczi Éva: Holt költők társaságában. A Puritanizmuskutató Intézet és a Medgyesi Pál Puritán Kiskönyvtár emlékére - Nemzet, egyház, művelődés 9. (Sárospatak, 2014)
István Czeglédi, the Martyr-Preacher of Kassa and a Faithful Student of the Netherlands
PETRŐCZI ÉVA: HOLT KÖLTŐK TÁRSASÁGÁBAN „Henricus a Diest”294, now, in the 21th century, we are lucky enough to have a very detailed German publication of Péter Eredics and Ferenc Postma, entitled Henricus Diestius und seine Ungarischen Studenten in Deventer (Henricus Diestius and His Hungarian Students in Deventer.295 We learn from this very meticulous paper that in his Grammatica hebraea Diest mentions “multi Ungari, aliique ex Academiis, ad nostram institiutionem ad exiguum tempus divertes. (Footnote No. 3. to the Dedicatio.)”296 Diest, who was born in Rhein-Westphalien and studied at Herborn, Heidelberg and Basel, at all these significant educational centres of Germany and Switzerland, had the opportunity to meet some fellow-students from Hungary. That’s partly why we can understand his special sympathy, or almost fatherly affections in his ripe professorial years towards the altogether 27 Hungarian students, who appeared at Deventer between 1644-1649., including István Czeglédi. Moreover, in one of his basic works, Funda Davidis (a book on systematic theology) the names of five Hungarian respondents (and, of course, their argumentation, appear. This part of the Diestian oeuvre had different Hungarian translations, by Miklós Szoboszlai, Balázs Uzoni and Péter Udvarhelyi. The sophisticated doctoral thesis of Péter Eredics, a Hungarian scholar who lives in the Netherlands (we have already mentioned him!) deals partly with these three translations. These translations prove that the popularity of Henricus Diestius was not fading with the years: one of the greatest „hits” of our pious literature was the Hungarian interpretation of his Spiritual Weapon (In Dutch: Christelijke Ghebeden en Danckseggingen), the work of István Diószegi Kiss.297 Returning now to the versatile and brain-storming Postma-Eredics paper: to our disappointment, there is no word in it about the professor Diest-Czeglédi relationship. But the extremely accurate authors can’t be blamed about it - in spite of his long stay at Deventer, this Hanseatic town of Holland, István Czeglédi was neither the translator of any of Diest’s works, nor did he mention him by name in his own publications, following the habit of humanist scholars who were usually saluting the remarkable tutors of their lives. It was surely not the lack of homage or gratitude on 294 Segesváry Lajos 1937.. 295 Postma-Eredics 2010. 296 Ibid., 72. 297 Diószegi Kis István 1666.— Latest Hungarian edition: 1851. 138
