Dilemmas of a Socinian Pacifist in Seventeenth-Century Poland

1994 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Brock
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Positive Answer ◽  
Sermon On The Mount ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Congregational Leaders ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Grand Duchy Of Lithuania ◽  
Good Cause ◽  
Grand Duchy

The antitrinitarian Polish Brethren, from the inception of their denomination as a breakaway from the Calvinist Reformed Church in 1565, had earnestly debated the issue of whether a “true Christian” might collaborate in the workof the sword-bearing magistracy, take part in war, or kill a fellow human being in self-defense. Whereas the brotherhood in the militarily exposed Grand Duchy of Lithuania, with a few exceptions, gave a positive answer, the congregational leaders in the more secure kingdom of Poland for the most part said no. To do any of these things, the latterargued, entailed disobedience to Jesus’ commandments as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere in the New Testament. For Christ replaced the laws of the Old Testament, which had allowed the ancient Israelites to wage just wars and wield the sword for good cause, with a gospel of love and defenselessness. This doctrine of nonresistance the pacifist Brethren, of course, had taken over from the Anabaptists of central Europe, whose insistence on adult baptism they also adopted.

scholarly journals Кириллический рукописный учебник древнееврейского языка (список XVI в.) и его учебно-методические приемы

2013 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-34
Author(s):  
Сергей Юрьевич Темчин
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Song Of Songs ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Learning Material ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Presentation Methods ◽  
Grand Duchy Of Lithuania ◽  
High Level ◽  
Grand Duchy

В статье обосновывается характеристика недавно обнаруженного рукописного кириллического учебника древнееврейского языка, созданного совместными усилиями православных и иудейских книжников, как учебного пособия, с методической точки зрения значительно превосходящего иные восточнославянские двуязычные справочные материалы того же времени. С этой целью подробно описаны применяемые в нем приемы, направленные на такую подачу языкового и сопутствующего текстового (религиозно-культурного) материала, которая облегчила бы его усвоение потенциальным читателем. Методическую сторону рассматриваемого памятника письменности следует признать одним из результатов еврейского вклада в его создание.Ключевые слова: Великое княжество Литовское, кириллическая письменность, иудейско-христианские отношения, древнееврейский язык, руськамова, библейские переводы, жидовствующие....Sergei TemchinCyrillic 16th-century manuscript “Manual of Hebrew” and its teaching methods A concise Manual of Hebrew, recently discovered in a Cyrillic manuscript miscellany of the 3rd quarter of the 16th century (Moscow, the Russian State Archive of Early Acts, F. Mazurin collection (f. 196), inventory 1, No 616, f. 124–130) is very important for the history of the Ruthenian written culture in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Manual of Hebrew comprises material of three different kinds: a) some excerpts from the original Hebrew Old Testament text (Ge 2.8, 32.27–28; Ps 150; So 3.4 (or 8.2), 8.5; Is 11.12) written in Cyrillic characters; b) a bilingual Hebrew–Ruthenian vocabulary with explanatory notes; c) small quotations from the Ruthenian text of three Old Testament books (Genesis, Isaiah, Song of Songs).The meta-language used in the Manual of Hebrew is Ruthenian. The translations present in the Manual had been made directly from Hebrew. A comparison of the quotations from the Song of Songs found in the Manual and all the known Cyrillic and Glagolitic versions of this book (referring to both the manuscript and the printed sources of different periods) reveals their principal coincidence with the Ruthenian translation found in the Vilnius Old Testament Florilegium (Vilnius, Wróblewskie Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, F 19–262). The originals of the two manuscripts probably originated in the 2nd half of the 15th century in the circle of the learned Kievan Jew Zachariah ben Aaron ha-Kohen who is also known as Skhariya, the initiator of the Novgorod movementof the Judaizers (1471–1504).The Cyrillic Manual of Hebrew is a clear evidence of this language being taught/learned in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania during the late 15th–early 16th century. The learning material and its presentation methods reveal a quite elaborate (although inconsistently implemented) pedagogical approach which puts the Manual aside from the rest of early East Slavic glossaries of the same or earlier date. Thus, the Manual presents, among other features: a) a number of original Hebrew texts written in Cyrillic, divided into small portions (each with a Ruthenian translation) which are then put together to form a continuoustext; b) certain trilingual glossary entries where Hebrew, “Greek” (in reality Slavic borrowings from Greek) and Slavic words are juxtaposed, while in other cases double translations in two different Slavic languages (Ruthenian and Old Church Slavonic) are given; c) some long elaborated definitions, sometimes containing synonymous variants or alternative translations; d) information about the sources of variant Hebrew forms or their meanings; e) information on certain grammatical (gender, plural, possessive) forms and word formation (compounds), etc.It is beyond doubt that the Cyrillic manuscript “Manual of Hebrew” is a result of joint efforts of Jewish and East Slavic bookmen, but the relatively high level of pedagogical and linguistic sophistication of the joint result is to be ascribed to the Jewish compilers of the Manual rather than to their East Slavic co-authors.

scholarly journals Stipendiaries of the Calvinist Church of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and its Synod in Foreign Universities in the 17th Century

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-50
Author(s):  
Ingė Lukšaitė
Keyword(s):  
17Th Century ◽  
University Education ◽  
Religious Minority ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
International Alumni ◽  
Grand Duchy Of Lithuania ◽  
Foreign Universities ◽  
Grand Duchy

The article analyses the organisation of higher education by the Calvinist Church of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Unitas Lituaniae) in the 17th century, in the period of the weakening of the Reformation, covering the first half of the 17th century, and the second half of the century, when Evangelicals became a religious minority. Research reveals that the education of young people at foreign universities was funded by private means, collected in the districts and accumulated by the Synod. This article also investigates the formation of the institution of international alumni at the Synod of the Calvinist Church, which became part of the system of education of that Church. The stipendiaries had to make up for the financial aid by working at locations assigned by the Synod. The continuous operation of the institute of international alumni at the Synod for more than a century permitted cultural contacts and simultaneously promoted the infusion of new ideas into the evolution of Lithuanian culture. The most important of the latter included the formation of groups of clergymen and school teachers with a university education; the nurturing of Adomas Rasijus’ (ca 1575–1627/8) projects for the adjustment of the social structure and the refinement of the education system in Lithuania by the establishment of academic grammar schools for the nobility and merchants from Lithuania with special syllabi; the encouragement of S.B. Chylinski to translate the Bible into Lithuanian in the middle of the 17th century in Franeker and London; understanding the importance of the Lithuanian language as a written language and the language of the Holy Scripture; the possibility to get acquainted with the translation, text and commentaries of the Dutch Statenbijbel; the encouragement to complete the translation of the New Testament into the Lithuanian language and publish it in 1701; planning the translation of a commentary to the Dutch Statenbijbel into Polish.

scholarly journals On the Time and Place of the Printing of Francysk Skaryna’s Little Traveler’s Book

Knygotyra ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 72 ◽  
pp. 17-33
Author(s):  
Ilja Lemeškin
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
University Library ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of ◽  
Widespread Belief ◽  
Grand Duchy Of Lithuania ◽  
Grand Duchy

As we continue to solve the issues of book science of the 16th century, we have to be very guarded in questions of terminology. This is of particular importance when we talk about the Little Traveler’s Book, which begins the history of typography in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. There is a widespread belief that the abovementioned book was printed in Vilnius approximately in 1522. It would be more correct to say that the Little Traveler’s Book was completed in Vilnius. One of its parts – a set of eight Akathists and eight canons – could have been printed earlier in Prague. This hypothesis can be supported with several arguments. In contrast with the Acts and Epistles of the Apostles (the Apostle, 1525), the Little Traveler’s Book is not dated anywhere and in terms of content, it is a heterogeneous (composite) publication. Considering the content of the Little Traveler’s Book, the elements that particularly stand out are the Akathists and canons that contain unique wood engravings, endpieces, vignettes, borders, and initials. Two wood engravings were made by one “Master of the New Testament,” whose works were published in the Prague Book of Psalms (1517). The autonomy of an Akathist as a particular publication is accented by the publisher’s acrostic colophon, written in the last Akathist via initials. The Akathists housed in Wroclaw (Wroclaw University Library, No. 305071) can represent the Prague period of typography. E. Nemirovkij’s “evidence” regarding the Vilnius origin of the Akathist is incorrect.

Manuscript Catalogs and Inventories of Books from the Lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania – Some Problems of Publishing Rules

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 107-121
Author(s):  
Lilia Kowkiel ◽  
Arvydas Pacevičius ◽  
Iwona Pietrzkiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Primary Source ◽  
Digital Form ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Historical Texts ◽  
Grand Duchy Of Lithuania ◽  
Grand Duchy ◽  
Book Culture

Historians and publishers of historical sources have a lot of problems with the texts written in different languages and alphabets, which were created at different times, in the multilingual areas inhabited by many nations following different religions. The historians of book culture have the same problems with texts of inventories and catalogues of books, which are the primary source of knowledge about the content of libraries. At present it’s also important the historical texts to be published in the digital form. This article is a part of the discussion on this very important subject.

D?r al-?arb as the Motherland? The Muslim Tatars of (the Grand Duchy of) Lithuania and Social Contract

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-177
Author(s):  
Egdūnas Račius
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Social ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Muslim Minority ◽  
Grand Duchy Of Lithuania ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
Grand Duchy

Muslim presence in Lithuania, though already addressed from many angles, has not hitherto been approached from either the perspective of the social contract theories or of the compliance with Muslim jurisprudence. The author argues that through choice of non-Muslim Grand Duchy of Lithuania as their adopted Motherland, Muslim Tatars effectively entered into a unique (yet, from the point of Hanafi fiqh, arguably Islamically valid) social contract with the non-Muslim state and society. The article follows the development of this social contract since its inception in the fourteenth century all the way into the nation-state of Lithuania that emerged in the beginning of the twentieth century and continues until the present. The epitome of the social contract under investigation is the official granting in 1995 to Muslim Tatars of a status of one of the nine traditional faiths in Lithuania with all the ensuing political, legal and social consequences for both the Muslim minority and the state.

“History Misappropriation or Compreension?” (Russian Lihuanian Studies in the 19th and the Beginning of the 20th Century)

2020 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 219-236
Author(s):  
Andrey Yu. Dvornichenko
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Medieval History ◽  
Scientific Paradigm ◽  
Russian State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Grand Duchy Of Lithuania ◽  
Grand Duchy

The abundant Russian historiography of the medieval history of Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Lithuanian-Russian State) has become in the last decades the centre of the discussions and is often subject to groundless criticism. This historiography was not very lucky in the Soviet period of the 20th century either, as it was severely criticized from the Marxist-Leninist position. When discussing Russian historiography the author of this article is consciously committed to the Russian positions. There are no reasons to consider this historiography branch either Byelorussian or Ukrainian one, as that was really Russian historiography, - the phenomenon that formed under the favorable specific conditions of Russian Empire before the beginning of the 20th century. The said phenomenon can be studied in different ways: according to the existing then main trends and schools or according to their affiliation with specific universities of Russian Empire. But according to the author of this article the best way to study the issue is in accordance with the main concepts of history. And then the pre-revolutionary historiography appears as an integral scientific paradigm that turns out to be the most divaricate branch of the Lithuanian studies of the time. It created, in its turn, the most vivid and objective historical picture that can still serve as the basis for the studies of Lithuanian-Russian state.

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